Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken
by James D. Fawkes
Summary: "A girl cries out for Salvation - and receives a Miracle." Like all things, it begins with a wish. One wish, for a powerful, strong familiar. One wish, to be a hero that saves everyone. One wish, to finally live free. One wish, to meet again after so long apart. One wish, to be forgiven for the sin of betrayal. One wish, with the power to change the world.
1. Fate to Zero

"_A girl cries out for Salvation — and receives a Miracle."_

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter I: Fate to Zero  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

When sound returned, the first thing Shirou heard was the murmur of voices.

He took in a deep breath through his nose. The smoke around him was dissipating, and the sun that had been blocked from his view shone down on him, reflecting off of the brilliant gold of his armor. Beneath his leather gloves, there was soil and grass that had been scorched black — backlash of whatever spell had brought him there.

After the murmur of voices, the first thing Shirou noticed was the density of the Mana in the air — denser and richer by far than it had ever been on any spot on Earth. It was Mana as Mana would probably have been in the Age of Gods. It was the purest, most unadulterated Mana Shirou had ever felt.

Shirou let out a breath and stood. His Circuits turned off and the sword in his hand was sheathed into a much smaller scabbard as the smoke that hid him finally parted. He cast his steel-colored eyes out at the crowd of black-cloaked children staring at him and whispering. Yes, he didn't need his sword. None of them were a threat.

He turned his gaze back to the petite girl at the front, who had long, almost pinkish strawberry blond hair and eyes a magnificent shade of burgundy. She was shorter and thinner than most girls he had seen, and were it not for the people she surrounded herself with and the shape of her face, she would have looked much younger than she was. She was dressed like all the other girls amongst the crowd, with a black cloak, white blouse, and grey skirt. That wasn't important. What was important, what made her stand out from the rest of her classmates, was the fledgling bond that connected her to him, the hum of Prana not his own that swirled through his body.

There was no doubt in his mind: this girl had been the one to summon him.

But it was all wrong. Even if he had been summoned across time to a period before his own birth, any such summoning would necessitate that he be provided a basic understanding of the place and era into which he had been summoned. He had been provided nothing of the sort. Whatever had summoned him had only given him an understanding of the language — a somewhat archaic dialect that bore an oddly strong resemblance to French — and nothing else.

Even still, it was wrong. Summoning was not necessarily an impossible art, but the level of power required to sustain the being you had summoned was uncommon. Shirou was not a Heroic Spirit, so he didn't necessarily need a pass — but that was assuming he had been summoned in his own world, and as far as he knew, there were no communities of French-speaking mages that dressed as the people in front of him did.

Further, the level of Mana in the air was ridiculous. It was fuller and richer than any place on Earth Shirou had ever been to, fuller and purer even than the temple on the mountain in his hometown.

No, the only conclusion Shirou could come to was that he had been summoned into a parallel world. And to do something like _that_, to enact a damned _True Magic_ with nothing more than _raw power_, this girl in front of him had to be incredibly powerful.

"Louise," a member of the crowd called, "what were you thinking, calling a commoner with 'Summon Servant?"

The members of the crowd tittered in response, and the girl in front of him — Louise, apparently, and he committed it to memory — flushed angrily.

"I…I just made a little mistake!" she shouted in her own defense.

"What do you mean, a mistake? Nothing unusual happened!"

"Of course!" someone else said. "After all, she's Louise the Zero!"

The crowd laughed again, a loud, echoing sound that rang out across the clearing like the chime of a church bell.

Powerful, but unskilled, Shirou amended. Unless summoning was a rather common art — which it could be, considering the number of creatures hovering around behind the crowd — this girl had a lot of raw power going for her, but not the control or skill to use it properly.

"Mr. Colbert!" the girl, Louise, sputtered embarrassedly.

The crowd parted to reveal a balding, middle-aged man in a long black robe and carrying a heavy wooden staff. Among all the others, this person Shirou recognized as a threat — not because he was threatening, but because one look said that he was the only one who could fight Shirou and hope to do any significant damage. It was not his appearance or his mannerisms; rather, it was a prickling of the hair on the nape of Shirou's neck, a shiver that swept down his spine, a feeling of uneasiness deep in his belly.

It was a sixth sense that said, _This man is dangerous._

"What is it that you want from me, Miss Vallière?" the middle-aged man asked.

"Please! Let me try the summoning one more time!"

The middle-aged man, Mr. Colbert, apparently, shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't allow that, Miss Vallière."

The girl looked frustrated, upset, angry — so much like Tousaka, and yet so different.

"Why not?"

"It is strictly forbidden," Mr. Colbert explained. "Once you graduate to your second year, you must summon a familiar, as you just did."

Shirou shifted slightly from one foot to the other. If he understood the conversation…

But to summon _him_ as a _familiar_? He wasn't a Heroic Spirit or a Ghost Liner, no, but to summon him across into a parallel world without even knowing that he was the one they were going to summon — that required a magus nearly on par with…

He ignored the muted pang in his heart.

…on par with _Ilya_.

So then, if this girl had summoned him without a Class container prepared to be her familiar…Well, it was worth sticking around to investigate.

Ignoring, of course, that he had no immediate way home, anyway.

"Your elemental specialty is decided by the familiar that you summon. It enables you to advance to the appropriate courses for that element. You cannot change the familiar once you have summoned it, because the Springtime Familiar Summoning is a sacred rite. Whether you like it or not, you have no choice but to take him."

"But... I've never heard of having a commoner as a familiar!"

"_Springtime Familiar Summoning?"_

So summoning _wasn't_ uncommon, after all. Even still, that didn't negate the other things. Every other familiar he'd observed since arriving was an animal of some sort — some would have been called Monstrous or Phantasmal Creatures in his home universe, but seemed to lack that sort of mystical weight and power here — and the only other humans in sight were all mages of some kind.

Furthermore, as the traditional sort of familiar, humans were unfeasible because of the ridiculous energy requirements needed to make and maintain them, so only Rin-level or Ilya-level mages bothered with it, and even then, rarely. Since he was a living, breathing person, the method this girl was using to make him her familiar was probably not quite as intensive as usual, but it was still an accomplishment.

So to have summoned him, a human — or whatever it was he counted as nowadays — this girl had to have a whole lot of power just _waiting_ to be unbound.

Yes, it certainly seemed worth it to stick around.

"This is a tradition, Miss Vallière. I cannot allow any exceptions. He," Mr. Colbert gestured pointedly at Shirou, "may be a commoner, but as long as he was summoned by you, he must be your familiar. Never in history has a human been summoned as a familiar, but the Springtime Familiar Summoning takes precedence over every rule. In other words, there is no other way around it: he must become your familiar."

"You have got to be joking..." Louise's shoulders dropped disappointedly.

Though he didn't often consider himself as particularly important because of the station that had been bestowed upon him — really, it wasn't even an official thing in the mundane world; it was just a sort of title, a responsibility he had undertaken the same as Saber had — Shirou found it somewhat amusing that they kept calling him a commoner when he was technically a king.

"Well then, continue with the ceremony."

"With _him_?"

"Yes, with him. Hurry. The next class will begin any minute. How much more time is this summoning going to take? After mistake upon mistake, you have finally managed to summon him. Hurry and form a contract." Everyone voiced their agreement and began jeering.

Louise stared at Shirou's face as if troubled.

That was his cue.

"Very well, then," he said solemnly as he took a step forward. Saber had supported him patiently when he had unwittingly summoned her into the Fifth Grail War, so it was only fair to pay that kind professionalism forward, and this girl was in desperate need of patient support. "If you're finally ready, then we shouldn't waste any more time. So, girl, upon your summoning, I have come forth. I ask of you: are you my Master?"

The girl looked at him as though he had grown a second head. "What?"

"Though I haven't been assigned a class nor gifted knowledge of this place and era, there is no doubt that I have been called across the æther to your side," Shirou explained in the same solemn tone. "And so I ask of you, girl: are you my Master?"

"Class? Knowledge?" She was grimacing and looked like everything he'd just said had gone over her head.

"It is unimportant," Shirou insisted. There would be time to explain all the technicalities later. "All that matters is whether or not you are my Master, girl. What I'm asking is if you were the one who summoned me."

"O-Of course I am!" she scowled and put her hands on her hips.

"I see," Shirou said it plainly. But still, something was amiss. He was no expert on familiars and Servants, but he knew enough. "Yes, it is obvious enough that you were the one who summoned me. But I'm afraid I must confess my confusion, Master. Is there something else that must be done to complete the contract?"

She flushed, grimaced again, and stared up at him with an absolutely miserable look on her face.

"Kneel, familiar," she said in a tone that was resigned, upset, and commanding all at once. Shirou, who had no reason to deny her, bent down on one knee.

"You should count yourself lucky," she mumbled to him. "Normally, you'd go your whole life without a noble doing this to you."

She closed her eyes and waved her wand — and yes, it was an honest-to-gods magic wand.

"My name is Louise Francoise Le Blanc de la Vallière," she declared. "Pentagon of the Five Elemental powers, bless this humble being and make him my familiar."

She leaned closer to him and her earlier comment suddenly became abundantly clear; Shirou couldn't help being amused.

"_Girl,"_ he thought, _"I've kissed a female version of _King Arthur. _It doesn't get nobler than that."_

The kiss was over quickly, and then she was backing away, flushed red and embarrassed and refusing to look at him. Shirou couldn't help the smile; she and Rin would have gotten on famously.

"You have failed 'Summon Servant' many times, but you have managed to succeed with 'Contract Servant' in one try," Mr. Colbert said happily.

"It's just because he's only a commoner."

"If he was a powerful magical beast, she wouldn't have been able to make a contract."

Some of the students laughed.

Louise scowled at them. "Don't make fun of me! Even I do things right once in a while!"

"Truly 'once in a while', Louise the Zero," laughed a girl with shining curly blonde hair and freckles on her face.

Louise fumed and looked about to retort, but as Shirou well knew, this was a battle that she couldn't win, so he decided to take pity on her.

"You needn't worry yourself, Master," he said confidently. Everyone stopped and turned to look at him. "My master need not worry herself over the blithering of the common rabble when she is the strongest mage here."

The crowd erupted into laughter again.

"How's that, commoner?" someone called.

"Did she pay you to say that?" cackled another.

Shirou only smirked. "There is no doubt that my Master is the strongest because it was me that she summoned."

Another round of laughter broke out and Louise looked like she wanted to melt into the ground.

"As if a commoner is worth summoning!"

Shirou wasn't deterred.

"You can laugh if you like," he told them all calmly, "but not a single mage here could hope to damage me with their magic." Here, he glanced at Mr. Colbert, who narrowed his eyes as he recognized what Shirou didn't say: _no mage except you_. "That alone speaks of my master's worth."

He swept the entire crowd with a cold, steely glare. "If her worth as a mage is measured by what she summoned as her familiar, then she is the most powerful mage here because I would not have sheathed my sword if anything here were a threat."

It was a fact, nothing more or less. Shirou had been summoned and bound as a Servant, or so it seemed, but since he wasn't a Heroic Spirit, nor even dead, and he hadn't been squeezed into a class container, he didn't have to rely on the beliefs of the country he'd been summoned in or the strength of his legend and had been summoned at full power. Of the people gathered in front of him, only Mr. Colbert could pose a threat at that time. Louise, if she was properly trained, might make that list, but she was also his Master, so it was moot.

If Mr. Colbert was considered the average for a mature mage, then no less than three would have to fight him together using some incredible teamwork to seriously endanger his life. And if Mr. Colbert was considered above average, or even exceptional…

Well, even Lorelei hadn't been a particularly large threat in the end. If there had been three or four of her, then she might have given him quite a bit of trouble, but the number of living mages who could equal or best the Queen of the Clock Tower was small.

Suddenly, the foreign Prana swirling inside of his body turned hot and agitated and coursed through his veins like molten lava. It focused most intensely on his left hand, which erupted into pain as shoots of agony lanced up his arm like lightning. Shirou hissed through clenched teeth and fisted the hardy cloth that protected his chest, just over the scar that marked the wound Gáe Bolg had given him those many years ago.

He was embarrassed when a low groan slipped past his lips. This pain was nothing, he told himself. This was nothing compared to the agony of trying to compete with Heracles' world-shaking strength, of having power not his own flood his body to stop himself from being flattened beneath the roughly hewn marble slab that had rent the ground asunder. It was nothing compared to turning your own nerves into a jury-rigged Magic Circuit.

It was probably the surprise, he noted absently. No contract he had ever entered had hurt, so he hadn't been expecting the sudden burning sensation that swept through his body like fire.

As quickly as it came, the pain left and Shirou's body returned to normal. He let out a breath, opened eyes that had closed reflexively, and tore off his glove — and there, staring out at him from the back of his left hand, was a collection of runes — and oh, what a mistake it was to never learn runes.

"A swordsman," the girl, Louise, was muttering to herself. "Worse than that, a _commoner_ swordsman."

"Oh?" every impulse in Shirou screamed in alarm, and it took all of his self-control not to leap away as the middle-aged Mr. Colbert leaned down to examine the etchings on the back of Shirou's left hand. "Those are some very strange runes…"

Shirou hadn't even heard him approach.

"Well," Mr. Colbert stood unceremoniously and turned to the rest of the class — a mistake, the warrior in Shirou insisted, to turn his back to someone who could very easily kill him without much effort at all, "let's go back to class, everyone."

Then, he spun on his heel and rose gently into the air. Shirou twitched — it was the best he could do to contain the more violent reaction that had wanted to break free, the urge to jerk as though he'd been slapped.

Levitation was Witchcraft, generally not practiced by respectable members of the orthodox thaumaturgical schools and looked down upon by "real" mages. Truly, he hadn't discounted the possibility, no matter how remote, that he had, in fact, stumbled upon a collection of mages hiding out in France, but if ever there were proof that something was entirely unordinary about this place, it was the fact that Colbert and his students all rose into the air using a levitation spell.

All except his new Master, the girl Louise.

Well, it wasn't entirely out of the realm of the possible, he supposed. If this were a group of heretics or Sealing Designates, then it wasn't impossible that this place could still be his home world.

Really, though, who was he kidding? The odds were too astronomical.

"Louise, you should _walk_ back."

"She shouldn't try to fly. She can't even do a simple levitation properly."

"A commoner is the perfect familiar for you, Zero!"

Then, like that, they were alone, Emiya Shirou and the girl called Louise.

As soon as it was just the two of them, Louise took a deep breath, spun around on her heel, and demanded, "_Who_ are you?!"

Shirou blinked. "Oh. I suppose I didn't introduce myself, did I? Normally, I should probably insist upon the usage of my Class name as an alias, but I suppose since I wasn't made aware of my Class and my deeds and real name are almost certainly unknown here —"

"Deeds? Class? Real name?" Louise pulled at her hair. "What are you talking about?!"

Shirou paused for a moment and considered her quietly.

"Normally," he started slowly, "when a Servant is summoned, it's through the usage of some kind of artifact like the Holy Grail. In cases like that, the artifact does the heavy lifting; the mage is just doing the spell, so it's the artifact that does the actual summoning. A Heroic Spirit is copied from the Throne of Heroes and placed at a portion of its full power in a class container that most suits that hero's particular skillset and Noble Phantasms —"

"Artifact? Heroic Spirit? Class? Throne? Noble Phantom?" Louise grimaced and stomped her foot furiously. "I don't…understand _any_ of that!"

Something in Shirou went cold.

"You…don't understand?"

Were these mages performing a summoning spell without knowing exactly how it worked?

That was…_incredibly dangerous_.

No, even more importantly, what magus worth their salt _didn't_ know about Akasha?

"Of course I don't understand, because none of that's important anyway!" she scowled. "And besides, you still haven't told me your name, commoner!"

Shirou grimaced. It seemed he would have to educate his Master, and at the earliest possible convenience.

The _very earliest_ possible convenience.

"Very well," he said carefully. "As I said, Master, I was not made aware of my class when I was summoned, so you may call me Em — Shirou Emiya."

Western custom was to use the given name first and surname last. Though his default mindset said that his name was "Emiya Shirou," he'd been traveling for too long and had visited too many countries not to have learned that particular convention.

"Shirou…Emiya," she pronounced the words with difficulty. Clearly, it wasn't an easy name for her to remember, probably because it was so different to what she was probably used to.

"Or Apeiron, if you would prefer," Shirou added helpfully.

She scowled at him again.

"Do not patronize me, familiar!" she shouted. "Besides, Apeiron sounds like a Noble's name, which does not befit a commoner like you! Shirou Emiya!"

At least she'd gotten his name right.

"As you say, Master," Shirou agreed politely.

Distantly, he thought that Gilgamesh would've carved her heart out by now if he were in the same situation as Shirou and Saber would've…well, he wasn't exactly sure _what_ Saber would've done in this position, but it wouldn't have been nice. Lancer…Lancer probably would've laughed and caller her "his kind of woman."

Louise huffed.

"Come, familiar!" she said snootily. "I will show you to my rooms and where you will be sleeping! If you behave, I may even see to it that you're fed before I turn in for the night!"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Louise's room, it turned out, was rather comfortable. It was not incredibly large, but for a bedroom, it was enormous — 200 square feet to do with as she pleased. It had to be about the same size of Rin's room, or the one in the Einzbern castle Ilya had locked him in those many, many years ago. There was a window on one wall, and if that was South (he'd have to check, he wasn't sure) then the door was on the north wall, her bed was near the west wall, and a large wardrobe stood against the east wall. Every piece of furniture and all the furnishings looked like priceless antiques that most auctioneers would sell their left arm just to touch.

To put it simply, Louise's room, while not queenly, didn't belong to a member of the working class.

Of course, that should probably have been obvious, considering most of those other brats had called him "commoner" since the moment he'd been summoned.

Shirou looked down at his clothes and fingered the red cloth — didn't his clothes seem too nice to belong to a "commoner?" Really, what was their definition of "commoner," anyway?

"This is my room," Louise said importantly.

"I see," Shirou replied neutrally. "Very well, then — are we alone, Master?"

Louise jerked. "What?"

"I asked if we're alone, Master," Shirou repeated. "There are things which we must discuss — issues which must be clarified and things about this contract of ours that I need to educate you on."

Louise growled.

"There's nothing complicated about it!" she snarled. "You are my familiar and I am your master! There's nothing else to it but that, so there's nothing for us to discuss!"

"I disagree," Shirou told her calmly. "You are woefully unprepared for this situation, Master, and your inexperience shows — no Master in my experience is so foolish as to summon a Servant without Command Spells in order to ensure cooperation."

He neglected to mention, of course, that his experience only included the Holy Grail Wars, where the Matou had contributed the powerful binding magic that formed the Command Spells that could force even a Servant to obey.

Considering he had been summoned without any idea _where_, _when_, and _why_, let alone _how_, there were only superficial similarities between his current situation and the kind he had experience with.

"Inexperience?!" Louise demanded furiously. "Why you unruly familiar — !"

"Master," Shirou interrupted, "please sit. There is much we need to discuss."

He gestured to the table in the middle of the room.

Louise growled again. "I will not be talked to like that, fam —"

"Master," Shirou cut in again, "_it was not a request_."

It was said politely, but punctuated with a short burst of killing intent — the kind of murderous aura that Gilgamesh had unleashed upon him during that Grail War so many years ago, malicious bloodlust manifested in the air and charged with Prana.

Louise stopped suddenly and looked at him with wide eyes as her mouth dropped open slightly. Then, meekly and mechanically, she set herself into one of the chairs.

"Good." Shirou sat himself down in the other chair. "To begin with, I would have you tell me how the magic of your summoning works."

"It's a _summoning_," Louise muttered a little defiantly. She glanced at him, but couldn't meet his eyes, so she looked away and glared at some spot three feet to his left.

Shirou couldn't stop himself from frowning. "Yes, but how does it work?"

"It's a _spell_," she said deliberately. _Are you stupid_, was tacked on silently. "You say the incantation, cast the spell, and it summons the — well, it's _supposed_ to summon the familiar most suited to a mage."

Beneath her breath, she added, "Except all I got was a stupid commoner swordsman."

Shirou hummed and pretended not to notice her insults — he'd been called a lot worse, so hers weren't especially creative or offensive anyway.

"Tell me," he started, "does the word "Akasha" mean anything to you? The Root of All Things? The Swirl of the Root? The Akashic Records? Throne of Heroes? Any of it?"

"No," she said petulantly. "Stupid familiar," was muttered beneath her breath. "What does all that stuff mean, anyhow?"

Shirou frowned at her and she looked away again, flushing with angry embarrassment.

"I've never met any mage worth anything who hasn't heard of Akasha before," he told her solemnly. She flushed an even deeper shade of red and seemed to swell up, her fear forgotten.

"You —" she started furiously.

"Akasha, the Root of All Things, is the wellspring of all creation," he cut in before she could really say anything. "It contains all knowledge of all things that are, have been, and will be. The _reason_ why any mage I've ever met who was worth anything knows what Akasha is happens to be because Akasha is the end goal of all proper magi. Of course, most magi long ago accepted the fact that their efforts will be fruitless, so they focus instead on doing as much as they can to improve their children's chances of reaching Akasha."

Uncomprehending confusion was her first reaction, then some part of his spiel registered in her head and something seemed to click. Horror suddenly stretched across Louise's face and her skin paled and she blanched as she glanced at his clothing — at last, the quality of the Fae-made armor was recognized, he thought sardonically.

"You," she began fearfully, "you're not the retainer for some wealthy Noble, are you?"

"No," he assured her simply.

She sagged into her chair and he smiled at her thinly. Her question made sense — all this talk of nobles and commoners — because stealing or kidnapping another noble's retainer would be grounds for a feud, especially if that retainer was well-liked enough to rate high quality clothing.

But that assurance seemed to also bring back her fire.

"Well, I don't know what kind of mages you've met," she said snidely, "but no proper Noble would bother with something like that!"

Another nail in the coffin — so, if there had been any doubt before, it could be removed now: this was not his world. That meant he was stranded in some parallel universe at the behest of a young mage who had lots of power but little talent. He had no immediate method of going home and no idea just what kind of world he'd been pulled into.

On the plus side, it seemed that he finally had some idea of the social structure. But really, what kind of culture was this that the only requirement for noble rank was the ability to use magic?

Details would have to be puzzled out later; for now, his new Master needed to be brought up to speed.

"Regardless, Master, Akasha is important," he told her calmly. "In Akasha lies the Throne of Heroes; every hero whose deeds become legendary ascend to this Throne and are transformed by the beliefs of the people into Pseudo-Divine Spirits — humans who have reached the level of gods."

Her face twisted with fury and she threw herself halfway across the table as two splotches of angry red colored her cheeks.

"There is only one god," Louise cut in, "and to say otherwise is blasphemous, familiar! To even hint that a human could reach His level, even a mage, is strictly forbidden!"

Shirou shrugged, completely unbothered.

"If that is what my Master wishes to believe," he said patronizingly, "then I shall do nothing to persuade her differently."

"You —!"

"In my experience, summoning a Servant usually requires an artifact of immense power," Shirou steamrolled on. "In that case, you'd need the magical power equivalent to about…45,000,000 mages to summon a full seven Servants, each one of them copies made from a hero on the Throne."

The steam left Louise and her mouth dropped open — the number seemed to have thrown her for a loop. Shirou could understand her surprise; it was, after all, a ridiculously large number, and he wasn't even sure that many mages _existed_ in his world. The idea of needing that much raw power to perform something that looked relatively easy from the outside was staggering.

But after she had a moment to get over it, she quickly seemed to realize that the amount of energy to summon even a single Servant was well beyond the capabilities of even a dozen mages. That meant that she had done something that should have required more power than even the best mages she knew possessed, and she had done it without even _meaning_ to.

That was when the tentative pride began to show on her face and in the lift of her shoulders.

"Wait," she began, "so summoning just _one_ Servant would still take, like, six million mages, right? And you…you're one of them? One of those…what did you call them…pseudo-gods?"

The hope in her voice, the desperate _need_ to have done _something_ right, to have done _something_ worthy of notice, it was almost painful to look at.

Shirou smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

The shame was that he was going to have to dash that hope. Saving this girl now would mean dooming her later.

"That's where it gets tricky," Shirou said. "Those Pseudo-Divine Spirits are referred to as Heroic Spirits, but to be a Heroic Spirit, you also have to be dead. In my experience, a summoned Servant is a copy of a Heroic Spirit shoved into a container that best suits them — a hero famous for his swordsmanship becomes a Saber class Servant, for instance, and a bowman would become an Archer class Servant."

He gestured to himself. "The problem is that I'm neither a Heroic Spirit nor am I dead. On top of that, being shoved into a container puts limitations upon that particular Heroic Spirit, which means that they're reduced to a fraction of their normal capabilities."

"Wait, wait," Louise jumped in. "Container? Limitations?"

Shirou pursed his lips and looked around for an analogy to use. He spotted the teapot sitting innocently with a set of fine china — yeah, that'd work pretty well.

"Think of a Heroic Spirit like a pot of tea," he said slowly. "You've got this hero, this entire pot of tea, but you have to fit him into a class container — a teacup. There's no way you're going to fit the entire pot of tea into that cup, just like you can't fit the entirety of the hero into that class container, so you fit as much as you can."

"I see," she mused shrewdly, and it seemed like she really did. Shirou smiled; was he dealing with another Rin, here, simply stunted by a lack of proper teaching and control? "So how does this affect you, then, since you're not a Hero Soul-thingy and you're not dead?"

"Servant containers are usually designed to fit Heroic Spirits," Shirou explained, "and Heroic Spirits are spiritual beings with no physical body, so in the case where, for some reason, a living human being is summoned, that person's body will be frozen in time as their soul is fitted into a container much larger than they are. In that case, the Servant generally winds up pretty weak compared to other Servants, unless they have some sort of skill to make up the difference. But that's not the case, here. This is my flesh and blood body, well and fully, straight down to the marrow. Whatever brought me here used a magic beyond my experience."

That was what had happened to Saber. She had made a contract with the World, and while her soul went gallivanting off through time in search of the Holy Grail, her body remained frozen at the moment of her death, removed from the flow of events until her contract was completed. If she had been any other hero from the Age of Man, she would have been incredibly weak compared to the other Servants, but Saber had a very useful skill to boost her abilities: Prana Burst.

Of course, a good Master and a functioning bond could let her enjoy some of the advantages other Servants had, but without either, she would be stuck with what her Prana Burst allowed her to achieve.

"What?" Louise demanded indignantly. "So all that explanation was for nothing?"

"Not really." He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "What I'm trying to tell you is that this magic is different, so it summoned me at full power. Since I wasn't squeezed into a class container and I wasn't stuffed into a container much bigger than me, I'm at full strength right now."

"But you said that you're not a Heroic Spirit," she pointed out. "That means you're just a human, right? And a commoner at that."

She seemed really stuck on that point. Why did she seem to think that he was just a commoner, a regular human? How did she explain to herself his extensive knowledge of this subject? Why hadn't she yet come to the conclusion that he was a mage himself?

The only explanation that really made sense to him was that something in the spell was supposed to prevent it from summoning other mages, other "nobles," as familiars, and given how important the nobility seemed to be in this society, he imagined that was probably the case.

After all, having another noble as your familiar — what essentially boiled down to a cross between a partner, a pet, and a slave — would have caused all _sorts_ of hassle. It would have been a political nightmare. No, if the nobility was _that_ important, then it only made sense that there was some kind of caveat or proviso built into the spell to prevent nobles from summoning other nobles.

But if that _was_ the case, then how old was this system? If it was relatively new, then maybe he could find a book or a scholar of some sort who knew how it functioned enough for him to find a way home. Maybe Colbert knew. Maybe there was some sort of Academy of some kind that specialized in this sort of magic (or its history).

Or maybe there wasn't a way home at all.

A difficult thought that bothered him more than he would care to admit; after all, his responsibility was to the world in which he'd been born. On the other hand, well, Emiya Shirou recognized no boundaries or borders in his mission to save people, so even though this wasn't his world, if he was indeed stuck in it, then he would just have to continue his crusade here, wouldn't he?

Before he could take care of that, however, he needed to educate his petite young Master.

"I'm not a Heroic Spirit," he admitted, "but I'm not at the level of an ordinary human, either. Let's see…"

He glanced around and found the western wall — if he understood the structure right, nothing but more castle lay beyond it.

"If I punched this wall as hard as I could," he gestured to the wall behind her bed, "I'd probably destroy the wall, the room beyond it, the room beyond that, the room beyond _that_, and any rooms above them."

A-Ranked Strength was enough to destroy a house with a single punch, or lob an 80 ton boulder up a hill. B+ Strength was nearly _twice_ as powerful. If he were honest, Shirou was probably being conservative in his estimation of the damage he would do should he actually punch that wall with all his might.

After all, Heracles had had B+ Strength without Mad Enhancement, and with that level of power, even the wind swept aside by his sword could do damage. It was incredible to think that Shirou could be capable of such a thing that had amazed him when he was younger.

But that seemed to be the final straw. On top of everything else, that was what broke the camel's back. Even if she had grudgingly accepted everything else he had yet told her, this one thing, she could not.

"Do you think this is funny?!" Louise snarled, hackles raised. Angry red splotches stained her cheeks. "Is this some kind of joke to you?! Saying something so ridiculous — what, are you playing a prank?! Did Zerbst put you up to this?! You thought it might be fun to tease the Zero, is that it?!"

"Master," Shirou tried.

"Get out!" she roared. "Get out, get out, get out! Stupid familiar!"

He should have stayed. He should have refused. He should have waited for her to calm down and continued the conversation — there was much they still needed to cover, like the runes carved into the back of his left hand and what he had been summoned for — but he didn't.

They didn't have heroes, here. He'd surmised as much from the fact that she didn't understand the concept of a Heroic Spirit. They didn't have heroes who accomplished the impossible — heroes like King Arthur and Lancelot, who slew dragons, or Heracles, who killed a nine-headed Hydra, or Cúchulainn, who could reverse causality to enact his heart-thrust, or Gilgamesh, who had collected all the worlds' treasures for himself.

She didn't understand that there were heroes like that, who did the impossible and who had strength well in excess of ordinary men. Until she saw such a thing for herself, she wouldn't be able to believe it, believe him, so there was no point in trying to convince her otherwise.

That was why, wisely, Shirou retreated. He stood from the table and silently walked to the door. Louise didn't bother to watch him; her eyes were transfixed unblinkingly on the table, and tears were beginning to well up in the corners. Her shoulders shuddered and her mouth was wobbling.

She was a girl with a lot of confidence issues. Anyone who looked could see that. If left on her own, if she never accomplished anything that could raise her self-esteem, then it was entirely possible that she might do something as outrageous as end her own life. She teetered on the precipice even now, and he was the one who should reach out and pull her away from the cliff's edge.

But not now. Now, they had just met. Now, he was nothing more than a stranger who was probably deceiving her for one reason or another. Now, he had to prove himself to her, had to prove his sincerity to her, before she could trust him, before he could save her.

Yes, he would save her.

But not now.

"I'll return in the morning, Master," he said solemnly. She stiffened, and her fists clenched at the edge of the table, knuckles white, but she didn't react otherwise. "Until then, goodnight, and pleasant dreams."

He closed the door behind him, and as soon as the latch clicked shut, he heard Louise break down into muffled sobs. For an instant, for a short handful of seconds, Shirou paused and hesitated. For that single moment, he thought, perhaps, he should have gone back in to comfort her, to wipe away her tears and save her from the crushing depression of failure.

But he squashed that desire. Now was not the time.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Shirou's feet carried him seemingly of their own accord out of the Academy and back across the courtyard. Above him, twin moons glared down mockingly, as if to taunt him with the fact that he was most certainly no longer in his own world. The proof hung there in the sky, one small and red, one large and blue, full and ripe and spiteful.

Yes, two moons. Unless Zelretch had managed to pull the mother of all pranks (who ever heard of duplicating the moon, damn it?), he was most certainly in some kind of parallel world.

Shirou came to a stop in front of the scorch mark that he had stood in a few short hours ago. He knelt down and touched his fingers to the blackened grass — in crumbled away beneath his touch and left a dark, ashy gray residue on his fingertips. He rolled it about between his thumb and forefinger — it was just normal ash, nothing more, nothing less.

There existed traces of Prana all around him, and especially radiating from the mark that had been burned into the ground, but it was too muddled — too many people had summoned since he had first been here, so anything that remained was too faint and too mixed to decipher.

He sniffed. A multitude of scents burst to life in his nostrils — too many. Again, too many. There were too many people who had cast magic in this spot for him to pinpoint any specific one, so there was no way to try and determine the nature of the spell that had brought him here.

Frustrating, certainly, but not the end of the world. If magic existed in this world that could bring him here from his own reality, then magic must exist in this world that could send him back.

The trouble, then, would be finding it. Fortunately, the limits of a human lifespan did not apply to him, so even though he would rather leave as soon as possible, he could afford to wait a few years if he absolutely had to, and if it came down to it, then he could wait until Louise grew old and died.

What was another sixty years to him? His hair was already almost entirely white, and his body had stopped aging nearly forty years ago. Another sixty years would mean very little in the long run.

But by the same token, a lot could happen in sixty years.

His brow furrowed.

Sakura and Rin would almost certainly be gone, then. Issei…Issei might make it another twenty or thirty years from now, if he was lucky, but he was already an old man — already going grey, already losing teeth, already gaining weight and slowing down. Rin was a genius — she could simply prolong her own life using magecraft, and she could undoubtedly do it without the pitfalls Zouken had fallen into. Sakura…

How long had it been since he'd seen Sakura?

No, he needed to get home as quickly as possible. He would never forgive himself if he lost the chance to say goodbye to his few remaining friends.

And just as importantly, there were still things he had yet to do.

"Trace…on."

The seven steps were accomplished quickly — practice and experience had reduced the required time by nearly half. The blueprint etched into his mind was made real, and in his hand appeared a crooked, jagged dagger that had almost no killing power. That was fine; this particular weapon was not designed to kill or maim, but to accomplish the negation of all contracts.

All it would take was a single, short prick.

That's all it would take.

All he had to do was stab his hand just the slightest, just enough to break the skin, and those runes etched just beneath his knuckles would disappear as Rule Breaker negated the contract that bound him to Louise. So very easily, he would be free, and he could search out a way back home at his leisure without having to waste his time following the whims of a young girl amongst a bunch of mages who didn't even know what _Akasha_ was.

Shirou sighed, let his grip on the dagger slacken, and dismissed the Projection — Rule Breaker faded and vanished into motes of golden light that winked out like fireflies.

Almost fifty years ago, he had been dragged into the Fifth Holy Grail War — twice, as a matter of fact — and that first time, when he had been clueless and ignorant, Saber had patiently (and sometimes impatiently) supported him. Even though he hadn't had any idea what he was doing, she had stood beside him, his sword, his shield, a gallant figure that never abandoned him and never gave up.

In honor of that, in honor of Saber, he could not so heartlessly abandon Louise. That was why Shirou didn't sever their contract. That was why Shirou resigned himself to a future here, in this world, until Louise no longer needed him. That was why he sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back as the cool night air washed over his skin.

"Sorry, guys," he murmured to the wind, "it looks like I'll be gone for a while."

It was supposed to be an apology to people who couldn't hear or reply, but unexpectedly, the wind answered. A whistle ghosted into his ears — the faint hiss of air being swept aside by something thin moving fast — and his eyes snapped open just in time to catch the shadow of a large figure passing across the distant moon high in the sky.

"Trace…on."

His eyes suddenly sharpened and the figure in the sky became clearer — a dragon, pale (it was impossible to tell its exact color in the moonlight, only that it was "pale"), with the body structure befitting a Western dragon rather than an Eastern one, and ridden by a small girl about Louise's age astride its neck just above the wing joints.

"An observer…?" he mumbled to himself, and felt a vague sense of satisfaction.

A proper mage, then, keeping an eye on a possible threat from what she assumed was a safe distance where nobody would think to look — perhaps Louise was not the only person in the castle with potential.

Nonetheless, the folly of all the mages he knew (except Rin, who had learned from both him and Archer why she should never underestimate her enemy) was in assuming their superiority and their nature as human beings to stick with what they knew had succeeded before. He supposed he could not blame the girl on the dragon for making the mistake she had — after all, humans had a tendency not to look up, so until they learned better, most people were vulnerable to an attack from above.

That was why, against anyone else, her decision to observe from the safety of her dragon high in the sky would've been a valid tactic, especially under the cover of darkness. Even _he_ wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't heard the wind in the dragon's wings and opened his eyes at the right moment.

Even still, it was a mistake. It was likely that a girl who would think to observe him in such a manner in the first place (and, indeed, who had decided he was someone who needed to be observed) had used a similar tactic before, or at the very least, had thought it would make an excellent spying method while she was riding her dragon one night at random.

No, wait, the Springtime Familiar Summoning, right? So she had just summoned that dragon, hadn't she, only a few hours ago? Or maybe…she was from a different class level? A higher grade student? Or…

Damn it. This place was so _confusing_.

Well, either way, her initiative was commendable, and her idea had merit, but still…

"Your mistake is in assuming that I cannot strike you from this distance in this light," Shirou told her without raising his voice, but he didn't think she actually heard him — and he didn't mean for her to. "A lesson I learned quite quickly when I was your age: distance only matters in a battle between equals."

Not quite true, but an accurate enough sentiment regardless. In a fight, so long as you and your opponent were within a comfortable skill, strength, and speed margin of one another, distance could be useful and lifesaving. Even in a battle between Servants, this was true — if Archer had stayed true to his nature as a bowman, then he could have defeated the majority of his opponents from a safe distance using Broken Phantasms, with the possible exceptions of Berserker and Gilgamesh. In that way, because Archer's specialty skills so outpaced his physical abilities, he could fight the physically superior Servants on equal footing.

In a battle where the combatants were unequal, however, where there was nothing to make up for one party's inability to combat the other, distance was useless. No matter how quickly a normal human ran, no matter how much of a head start he or she had, a Servant could cross the distance and overcome him or her easily. In a situation such as that, it didn't matter how far away you were from that Servant. It didn't matter if you were in a jet or across the ocean — Servants were spiritual entities who had done heroic deeds all their lives. If they couldn't reach an enemy conventionally, then they simply needed to take advantage of their nature as spiritual beings and use Spirit Form.

In this manner, it didn't matter that the girl on dragon-back was so far away — with such ease, he could knock her out of the sky, because she had nothing that could compete with his range and his attack power. So easily, he could kill her before she could even think to dodge.

To put it simply, she wouldn't realize she'd been killed until after she was already dead.

Such was the difference between someone like him and someone like her — she could not possibly compensate for it.

Nonetheless, she had not attacked him, so he had no reason to attack her. If she was as smart and clever as she seemed, then she had already figured out that he had seen her, which meant that she would learn to hide herself better next time — and when that next time turned out to be a scouting mission before a large battle, she would be thankful that she had learned this lesson before it had become a matter of life and death.

Emiya Shirou had seen many battlefields, had seen many men who found out only in the thick of combat that they were not fit to take another man's life, that they could not take that last step and become a murderer without breaking. He had seen many men who took their own lives as recompense for the blood that stained their hands. He had seen many men who had closed up and spent the rest of their lives whimpering apologies catatonically. He had seen many men who had become cold, remorseless killers or psychotic, homicidal maniacs. The one thing they all had in common was that they weren't prepared. They hadn't learned soon enough that they weren't ready or that they weren't of the character necessary to do such things without changing for the worse.

In the end, it all came down to preparation. He could not prepare this girl for war — in the first place, if he had any say, she would never see it herself — but he would show her that she could never be completely safe, even on that dragon. He would show her that a single advantage would not always save her life. He would show her that vigilance meant preparation for as many possibilities as she could imagine, no matter how improbable.

And all he had to do was look up at her.

Of course, he could also drive his point home. He could Trace his bow and Project a sword to use as an arrow — an ordinary, mundane blade would do — and purposefully miss, just to show her that he could reach her if he wanted to.

No, he decided, that was too much like a threat. He had already shown this girl her mistake. He had already saved her. There was no reason to upset her with a display of force like that.

Besides, he should get some sleep. Hadn't he learned from Saber? A warrior's life was always in motion, so it was wise to get sleep whenever you could.

Yes, that was a good idea. It had been a tiring day, and sleep would do him good.

He turned around and started back towards the school, but had not gotten more than three steps before he had a thought and paused. Frowning, he spun back towards the blackened mark where Louise had summoned him and scorched the ground with the force of her spell. If left on its own, untouched by mages or spells, it would probably take at least a year and some quality fertilizer to give life back to that spot, and perhaps even several more before it recovered enough to match the grass around it.

Well…maybe he could help it along a little bit.

Magic Circuits flipped on and Prana hummed through them — a brief lurch tried to rise up in the back of Shirou's head, but was quelled — then he whispered a few words in a foreign language his tongue had still not gotten used to speaking. After a moment, he gave himself a brief, satisfied nod, turned his Circuits back off, and made for the castle again.

Behind him, the blackened spot where Louise had summoned him had been replaced with lush green grass, freshly grown.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fate/Stay Night or Familiar of Zero.**

**I hate to ripoff GB, but story discussion here: The Creator's Room (www fanfiction net/ forum/ The-Creator-s-Room/ 118200/).**

**Props to GB for Hill of Swords, but for those reading this expecting it to be pretty much the same, you're going to be disappointed. There will be some obvious similarities in the beginning, but the story as a whole will be on an entirely different level than Hill of Swords. The GAR and the despair will be orders of magnitude greater. _Especially _since [Spoilers] is trolling around in Gallia.**

**A reminder: this is Fate/Revenant Sword Normal End Shirou, not regular FSN Shirou or FRS Good End Shirou. If you haven't read FRS, that's okay; this works fine as a standalone, you just have to extend your suspension of disbelief a little further.**

**Shirou's estimate for how many mages it would take to summon the Servants is off. Based on a lot of assumptions about how the whole thing works (as accurate as I could make it, at any rate), it would take 190 million mages to summon all 7 plus make 21 Command Seals and 27 million for one Servant and 3 Command Seals. Of course, there are several factors that were ignored because they are "unknowable," and the numbers themselves seem very ridiculous — let's face it, Nasu fails at numbers, so my calculations (and by extension, Shirou's) are probably wrong. Thinking about it, with those sorts of numbers, you could probably skip the class containers and summon the full Heroic Spirits.**

**So, I've got a proposal for you guys: you tell me how you want the Void Familiar classes to be written. That is, I can write them in their technically correct form (Mjöðvitnir, Gandálfr, Vindálfr, Lífþrasir), or else I can write them in the closest modern-English equivalent (Mjodvitnir, Gandalfr, Vindalfr, Lifthrasir). You guys tell me which one you would prefer, which one is easier for you to read.**

**Yes, Louise's misuse of the Nasuverse terms was intentional. I didn't mistype them or anything like that accidentally.**

**By my estimate, the Shirou of this story is probably about…Sixty years old? Physically, he's early-to-mid-twenties, but chronologically, he's probably closer to sixty or seventy years old. Personality-wise, he's closer to a mix between Archer and Saber — pride and honor mixed with pragmatism and his ideals. This Shirou has lost quite a bit — Saber and Ilya, to start with, and most of his friends are old and gray. Rin went off to Clock Tower, Sakura has either moved on or is waiting patiently for him to return home…**

**To put it simply, Shirou's seen a lot. He still has his ideals, and he's gained a measure of pride in his skills and the things he's accomplished, but he's more jaded than FSN Shirou was. **

**Physically, Shirou looks like a mixture between himself and Archer. His hair has gone white in several places, his skin color has darkened somewhat, and his eyes are steel gray, but because he hasn't used Projection quite as much as EMIYA did, his skin isn't as dark as Archer's and his hair is still streaked through with his trademark red. Also, he's not quite as well built as anime!Archer is; for whatever reason, the animators buffed Archer up from what he was like in the VN, so as far as physique goes, he's more like VN Archer.**

**There're two polls out: one for Lifthrasir and one for Vindalfr. Lifthrasir will close sooner because Lifthrasir will (depending upon who I inevitably choose) play an important part in Albion's Civil War. Vindalfr should remain open for a while; remember that, when considering who to vote for, the Noble Phantasms and skill level are just as important as the personality. If the hero can't measure up (like Mordred), then they're not good enough to play on this level.**

**You may find both the Lifthrasir poll and the Vindalfr poll on the forum. The Lifthrasir poll is attached to the topic, "Miracle of Zero Chapter 1," while the Vindalfr poll is in the "Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken [Contains Major Spoilers]" topic. The Vindalfr poll is also on my profile.**

**Last thing, in this really long Author's Notes: I will, for the most part, be using the LNs as references for this story, with the anime to fill in some events in the later parts that Yamaguchi couldn't cover (and that haven't been translated in the LNs) before his death. Expect most of the outside characters to act like in canon (which means sticking to whatever plans they had in canon) except where Shirou or the other Void Familiars affect a difference. But we _will _be diverging quite a bit by the time we get to Saxe Gotha, if there even _is_ a Saxe Gotha. Or a Battle of Tarbes, for that matter.**

**No, this is really the last thing, and it's a warning more than a note: Miracle of Zero is essentially the Heaven's Feel route of Familiar of Zero, for those of you who have actually played FSN's VN all the way through. While we won't get quite as dark as HF did, nor will there be anywhere near as much sex (if at all), and while the story will start off relatively light, expect things to get bleak in several places.**

**Read, review, enjoy.**


	2. Confrontation

**Pre-Chapter Note: If this looks familiar, skip on down to the Author's Note.**

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter II: Confrontation  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

Shirou woke up at dawn with an annoying pain at the base of his neck and grimaced.

Decorative castle walls, a cold wooden floor beneath him, a large window with intricately woven woodwork throughout the frame, a king-sized four-poster bed with a silken white canopy — in other words, the room of Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière.

So then, it hadn't been a dream.

Of course it hadn't. Emiya Shirou dreamed of swords, not little girls attending magic academies in alternate universes. No, even in those delirious, incoherent moments just after waking, those moments between dreaming and the real world where even the craziest thought seemed plausible, Shirou had never hallucinated something of this nature — not once.

In the first place, he could never have actually thought that he was dreaming something like this.

But there was no point in dwelling on it. If he stopped to curse these circumstances, if he wasted time bemoaning what he had been dragged into, then he would stop moving forward and stand still. He would stop marching towards his dream and wallow in his own pity, in the bleak hopelessness of his situation.

There was no future like that. He couldn't save anybody like that.

So, Shirou stood, stretching out the kink between his shoulders and tilting his head back for a moment to relieve the pain that pressed just above the nape of his neck. He knew well how to handle it — it was only natural, after all, when you slept sitting on the floor with your head drooping against your chest. Shirou knew that from experience.

After all, how many nights had he spent in such a position? How many nights had he slept like that, with a sword propped up against his shoulder, ready to stand and fight the moment he awoke?

And so, it was only natural that he had become accustomed to it.

After stretching out, he strode across the room to Louise's bed and reached out to shake her awake, but stopped and hesitated bare inches before his fingers touched her shoulder.

She looked so much more peaceful asleep. Cute, even. The anger that she had displayed the day before, the fierce scowl and disapproval at the way he talked to her, the frustration and fury every time she was reminded of the fact that her familiar was as irregular as they came, it was all gone. The expression on her face was one of innocence and even happiness; the world of her dreams must have been her escape, a place where she was successful and powerful and no one laughed at her for her mistakes. Her paradise, in other words, her happy place.

All the more pity that he must disturb her.

"Master," he began quietly, gripping her shoulder gently and giving her a gentle shake. "It's morning."

She mumbled something unintelligible and continued sleeping. Shirou frowned and shook her a bit more firmly.

"Master," he tried again, "time to wake up."

Louise mumbled something incoherently again and rolled over onto her back, then, suddenly and without warning, shot up, straight as a board, into a sitting position. It was only Shirou's inhuman reflexes and reaction time that allowed him to throw himself backwards fast enough to avoid a collision between her forehead and his nose.

"Good morning, Master," Shirou greeted her politely. "Did you sleep well?"

Louise looked at him with sleepy, half-lidded eyes, opened her mouth as though to say something, then let out a wide, jaw-cracking yawn as her arms shot out, stretching. Reflexive tears glittered like diamonds on her cheeks.

Shirou waited patiently.

When the yawn ended and her arms dropped back down to her sides, Louise turned to look at him blankly and blinked once, twice, then spoke. "You. You're…"

She frowned and her brow knitted together as her eyes glazed over a little — she was remembering the night before, no doubt.

"Shirou Emiya," he supplied helpfully.

"Right. Shirou Emiya," she gave a sigh of longsuffering. "My commoner familiar."

Beneath her breath, she added, "Why couldn't you have been something cool, like a griffin or a dragon?"

"Our contract was sealed," he agreed, purposefully ignoring her frustration. "From this point forward, my sword shall be at your side."

"Right," she said unenthusiastically. "That. Very well, then."

She flung the covers off, slid her legs out of bed and onto the floor, then stood straight and proud, flung her arms out, and tilted up her nose disdainfully.

"Dress me, familiar," she commanded primly.

Shirou didn't move.

No, in the first place, asking a seasoned warrior who had killed and shed blood, who had bled, sweated, and cried to hone his skills and reach the pinnacle of his abilities, who had strode across battlefields and faced monsters that could give even the bravest of battle-hardened veterans nightmares, to dress a schoolgirl as though he were a maid was insulting. Shirou did not take it too personally, but he could not stop the niggling thought that most Servants he had met would have done away with her for daring to presume so much.

He was tempted to tell her that. He was tempted to tell her how Gilgamesh would've rewarded an order such as that. He was tempted to tell her how the King of Heroes would've reduced her to a red smear on the ground for such an insult.

"Master," he began slowly instead, "I cannot claim to know exactly how the familiar system works in this world —"

"What's not to understand? It's simple," she explained matter-of-factly. "A familiar is to aid the mage, of course. If you were a _good_ familiar instead of a stupid commoner, then you could probably fetch me ingredients and reagents needed for magic spells and such. If you were a dragon — why couldn't I have gotten a dragon? — then you could fight for me and defend me in battle, because a familiar is supposed to protect its mage, but you're just a commoner, so I bet you can't even do that. _Especially_ against another mage."

She flapped her arms a little impatiently.

"So," she continued snobbishly, "that means that just about the only thing you're good for is servant's tasks, like doing laundry and dressing me and pouring me tea."

Shirou frowned, but didn't otherwise react. His pride stung a little, but he had heard more creative and much more offensive insults from Dead Apostle Ancestors. "Is that right, Master? You summoned one such as me and you want me to do _chores_?"

"That's right," she nodded as though it were the most logical thing in the world. "Commoners can't beat nobles, so it doesn't matter if you were some barbarian swordsman before I summoned you. Since you're just a commoner, the only thing you're good for is menial tasks. So, dress me, familiar."

Shirou allowed his lips to pull into a cold smirk.

"I'm afraid," he told her solemnly, "that if you wish to step on my pride by forcing me to complete such a demeaning task, then you will have to part with one of your precious Command Spells."

"Command Spells?" Louise parroted uncomprehendingly. "What are those?"

"Oh," Shirou sarcastically feigned a realization, "that's right. You mages don't understand the summoning spell, so you don't have a proper Grail System to hand out Command Spells to ensure loyalty. Apologies, Master. I forgot that this world's mages have an inferior understanding of magic."

Angry red splotches appeared on Louise's cheeks, so furiously red that Shirou was afraid, for one wild moment, that she might actually spontaneously combust. If it were physically possible, he imagined steam would be pouring out her ears.

"I was already going to forbid you from eating breakfast for trying to trick me last night," Louise told him dangerously, "but just for that, no lunch, either!"

Shirou huffed a short, mirthless laugh.

"It seems I've been summoned by a most terrible Master, indeed," he said dryly.

Then, without waiting for her to respond, he spun on his heel and left her room. Her door shut behind him with a loud click.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was five minutes later when Louise opened the door and came out, fully dressed. The red splotches on her cheeks were still there, but much more pink than violent red, and she held in her right hand a long, thin, elegantly carved stick polished to a mirror shine.

Her wand. Of course.

"In the future," she hissed at him, "you _will_ dress me, familiar! Disobey me like that again, and I'll have you whipped for your insolence!"

"One day, Master," he said sardonically, "you will look back upon this moment and thank your god for my patience."

Louise opened her mouth to retort, but whatever she had been about to say was cut off as one of the three doors adjacent to hers opened up and a girl — a young woman — stepped out.

Of course, to call her simply, "a young woman" was the same as calling the Mona Lisa "a painting." She was almost exactly opposite of Louise — taller, curvier, with tan skin, fiery red hair, and the biggest bust Shirou had had the dubious pleasure of laying eyes on.

Shirou grimaced sympathetically — this girl was going to have quite a few problems with back pain as she grew up.

For all that she looked several years Louise's senior, however, the new girl wore the same uniform, only with the top two buttons undone to show off an almost indecent amount of cleavage. She also gave off an aura of flirtatious sexuality — this was a girl who knew _exactly _how attractive she was and how to use it to her advantage, he concluded. Dangerous, but also smart.

After all, if the enemy was too busy staring at her bustline, then they'd be too distracted to dodge her spells, wouldn't they?

Of course, by the same token, the more attractive she was and the more she flaunted it, the more likely a less scrupulous enemy would take advantage if he defeated her.

The moment the girl saw Louise, she grinned broadly. "Ah! Good morning, Louise!"

"Good morning…Kirche," Louise greeted reluctantly.

"So," the newly-named Kirche leaned forward a little to peer at Shirou, giving him a perfect view down her shirt — intentionally, he suspected with a grimace, "this is your familiar, is he?"

"That's right," Louise confirmed grudgingly.

"Wow! So it really _is_ a human! That's amazing!" She studied his face and smiled. "And he looks like a Germanian. Hey, familiar, are you some Germanian noble's bodyguard? Those clothes are pretty nice looking, if a little dated, and that hair of yours is pretty exotic. Not to mention that skin tone — I've only seen that kind of tan on a Germanian."

"Germania?" Shirou smirked. "Not even close. The place I'm from…you've wouldn't have ever heard of it."

"He's just a commoner," Louise interjected sourly. "Probably spent his entire life saving up for those clothes of his."

"Just a commoner, huh? That's a shame," Kirche said with a sultry smile. "It would've been…_fun_ to meet another Germanian. Most of these Tristanian nobles are so prudish and uptight. They don't understand what passion is."

She stood straight again and shrugged smugly as Louise fumed.

"Well," Kirche said, "I suppose it's only natural for Louise the Zero to summon a commoner. What else do you expect?"

The splotches of red that had just barely begun to fade from Louise's cheeks returned full force. "Shut up."

"_I_ summoned a familiar yesterday, too," Kirche preened. "And unlike a certain someone — who shall remain nameless — _I_ succeeded on my first try." She flicked her hair back over her shoulder with one hand. "And if you're going to summon a familiar, it should be a good one, like this. Flame!"

There was a great, animalistic huff, and a moment later, a large, fiery red reptile waddled out of Kirche's room like an alligator. Heat radiated from its skin, so hot that Shirou could feel it even several feet away.

"A salamander!" Louise cried, sounding a little envious.

And it was, indeed, a salamander, only about a hundred times the size of any salamander Shirou had seen. It was easily as big as a tiger, and the tip of its tail was shrouded in bright orange-red flames. With only that to go on, Shirou wouldn't have hesitated to say that this creature in front of him was one of the Phantasmal Species.

Except…

Except, as he had estimated the day before, it didn't have the mystical weight of a Phantasmal Creature. No, despite the fact that this thing in front of him should be a potent magical existence that could never hope to be tamed by an ordinary mage, it stood next to Kirche obediently, radiating only heat and not mystery.

"That's right, a salamander!" Kirche crowed triumphantly. "And the size and vividness of the flame on its tail means that it can only be a salamander from the Fire Dragon Mountains! It's like a mark of authenticity — a priceless collector's item whose value is incalculable!"

"That's nice," Louise said bitterly.

"Isn't it?" Kirche gushed, unaware of, or perhaps ignoring, Louise's tone. "It matches my affinity perfectly!"

"Your affinity is fire, right?"

"That's right," Kirche thrust her chest out proudly. "I'm Kirche the Ardent, the fire of gently smoldering passion. Everywhere I go, I have boys and men alike falling for me. Unlike you, right, Louise?"

Louise huffed and crossed her arms, glaring. "Of course not. I don't have time to go around flirting with everything that breathes, unlike you, Kirche."

Kirche smiled, unperturbed, and turned to Shirou.

"And what about you, cutie?" she asked. "What's your name?"

"Shirou Emiya," Shirou answered succinctly.

"Shirou…Emiya? What a strange name. With a name like that, I guess you really _aren't_ Germanian, after all."

She tossed her hair back again. "Well then, I guess I'll be off. Goodbye, Shirou Emiya, Louise the Zero!"

Throwing that farewell over her shoulder, Kirche strode off, her gigantic salamander shuffling after her with large, exaggerated movements. It was really inelegant, Shirou decided, and rather awkward looking.

"Ooh, that girl _really_ gets on my nerves!" Louise seethed once Kirche had left. She shook one tiny fist at the empty hallway. "She thinks she's so amazing just because she summoned a salamander from the Fire Dragon Mountains! Pah!"

"Calm down, Master," Shirou said bemusedly. "You have nothing to be envious of. There are far more powerful things out there than just a salamander."

Louise whirled on him.

"That's not the point!" she scowled, pointing on slender finger at him. "You can determine the power and potential of a mage by his or her familiar! Why did that – that _cow_ get a salamander and I just got a commoner like you!?"

"As I said, Master," Shirou replied, "you need not concern yourself. If the value of the mage is determined by the familiar, then my Master is the most powerful mage here."

She scowled at him again.

"Stop that!" she snapped. "It wasn't funny yesterday, and it's not funny now! If you keep making fun of me like that, then don't think I won't whip you, you impudent familiar!"

"…As you say, Master," Shirou conceded politely. "But I must confess my curiosity…Zero? Ardent?"

Louise blushed a violent red, but huffed and crossed her arms as though she were merely mad. "They're nicknames, of a kind. A mage is assigned one based upon their elemental affinity and characteristic magic."

"I see," Shirou said. "Then Miss Kirche is 'the Ardent' because her affinity is fire…but, Master, why are you called 'the Zero? Yes, as I recall, the other students referred to you by this name as well when you summoned me yesterday."

There was a moment of silence as Louise's blush spread from her cheeks to her ears and even down to her neck.

"Let's go!" she commanded suddenly.

Shirou thought about demanding the answer anyway, but decided that it was too early to test her patience — until he had established a better relationship with her, he couldn't take the liberty of prying so deeply into something that she was obviously not proud of.

So, instead of protesting, Shirou followed after her dutifully.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

They wound up at what Shirou concluded was the dining hall, a large room inside the castle's centermost spire. Inside, three incredibly long tables stretched across the hall, each one capable of sitting at least a hundred people, according to his estimate. He wondered briefly how big a tree had to be in order to craft a table that long and that wide, then realized, of course, they had magic, so it was a simple matter of fusing two pieces of wood together seamlessly.

Louise marched to the center table, where all the similarly-dressed students sat. Based upon the lack of variety and the uniformity at each table, Shirou concluded that each color cloak represented a different year of education. Based upon the position of the table, the second years, of which Louise was one, were the middle group and wore black cloaks. The others, he didn't know, but based upon the apparent ages, the first years wore brown cloaks and the third years wore purple.

A floor or two above, the teachers ate, separate from the students.

Each table was magnificently decorated — flowers, goblets of gold and silver, shimmering candles, baskets of fruit, and all sorts of other things. The platters and plates were all of the finest porcelain, embossed with different designs and patterns. The chairs were carved with the finest woodwork and etched with majestic symbols. It was opulent and excessive.

Shirou thought that Rin would be right at home.

"Tristain's Academy of Magic doesn't just teach magic, you know," Louise said importantly. She had probably mistaken his silence for awe. "The saying 'nobles achieve nobility through magic' is the cornerstone of our education, so it's only fitting that our dining halls must also befit our nobility. Be grateful, familiar. Normally, a commoner like you would never be allowed to set foot in here, the Alviss Dining Hall."

"As you say, Master," Shirou agreed a little distractedly. He was too busy cataloguing the occupants of the hall to pay much attention to her lecturing.

It was much as he had estimated the day before. Granted, it was harder to tell amongst such a large group, but based upon what he could sense, it hadn't been inaccurate to say that none of these people were a threat. None of them possessed the sort of overwhelming power required to threaten his life, so there wasn't anything to concern himself about.

Especially since they were all _children_.

Well, that wasn't actually fair, he supposed. He'd been about their age when the world had first started crumbling down around him — the Grail had not cared that he was so young when it had chosen him as a Master in the War. It hadn't cared about Rin's age, either, or Shinji's, or Ilya's. All that had mattered to the Grail was that they were capable of being or suitable as Masters. All that had mattered was that they each had a connection to the Grail.

Shirou had been a victim of the fire at the end of the previous Grail War.

Rin had been the daughter of one of the three founding families.

Sakura had been filled with remnants of the tainted Grail.

Ilya was the Lesser Grail, the vessel which would contain the Servants until the ritual was over.

Of all the Fifth War's young Masters, only Rin and Ilya had wanted to actually participate in order to honor their families (or simply because it was expected of them). Shinji had wanted to take part, too, but his drive had been only selfish, and he had only wrested the rights to Master from his sister.

In spite of how young they'd been, Shinji had tried to sacrifice the entire school in order to win, Ilya had killed Shinji simply because she could, and Rin had been prepared to end her own sister's life in order to save her from Zouken's control.

In the end, their ages did not mean they were _innocent_.

"Oh Great Founder Brimir, and our lady, the Queen," a thousand voices chorused reverently, "we thank you for this humble meal you have graciously provided for us this morning."

And, after that brief prayer, everyone started eating. Shirou supposed that this Brimir figure must be their god — probably a Divine Spirit — and wondered just what "Brimir" had done or supposedly done in order to earn such worship. Well, he'd probably find out one way or another the more time he spent with Louise.

Louise, meanwhile, said nothing as she ate. She ate with poise and elegance and studiously ignored both him and the conspiratorial whispers of the nearby students, who were, from what Shirou could hear, swapping rumors about him and her summoning. He supposed that there wasn't really anything he could do about that.

The perils of high school were the same, it seemed, no matter where or what universe you were in.

As she had promised, Louise didn't offer him a seat or a plate or any kind of food during the duration of the meal. It was supposed to be a punishment, he supposed, but he had gone days at a time without food, so a single meal, or even a whole day without, was a bit uncomfortable, but not debilitating or torturous.

He was sure that she intended for it to be uncomfortable, that she wanted him to come back to her, begging forgiveness so he could get even the tiniest scrap of food. She wanted power — power over something in her life when everything else was beyond her control. She couldn't be better than her peers, couldn't lord magical or social superiority over her classmates, so she wanted to have at least a measure of control over her familiar, who was supposed to dutifully obey her every command.

Even more so because her familiar was, as she must have thought, so disappointing. No, he had no doubt that she blamed him for being what she had summoned, so it was only appropriate that she would take her anger out on him, even if it was misplaced. Besides, even if it was very irregular, he was just a familiar, wasn't he? It was the same as having a dog or a cat, wasn't it?

The fact that she was missing, of course, was that the rules of having a familiar automatically changed once you involved a human being. You couldn't treat a human the same way you could treat a cat or dog. Animals like that could trust implicitly the moment you showed them kindness and fed them.

Humans, on the other hand, were logical thinkers. A human was capable of recognizing that kindness did not mean trust or benevolence. A human was capable of recognizing that other humans could have ulterior motives, that not all kind acts meant that a person could be trusted.

Humans were capable of betrayal, after all.

He would allow it for now. Louise was new to him. She was new to this whole situation. She didn't know what he was capable of or how to trust him. She was filled to the brim with all these preconceptions of the world, all of this romantic propaganda about nobles and nobility, and she didn't understand how the world actually worked. He had to be patient with her, even if she wasn't patient with him.

Yes, _especially_ if she wasn't patient with him.

Once breakfast was over, Louise beckoned him and led him off to another section of the castle, a classroom, oddly enough. It was built like the rest of the castle and structured like a university lecturing hall, with a platform on one side at the very bottom where the teacher would lecture and stepped rows of desks that rose steadily higher.

Compared to the rest of what he had seen, it seemed surprisingly modern. Granted, it was probably closer to an eighteenth or nineteenth century lecturing hall at Oxford University than the modern halls at any of the major campuses in Tokyo, but for a society that seemed to have substituted technology with magic, it was oddly out of place.

The moment Louise stepped through the door and into the classroom, with Shirou two steps behind her, everyone stopped talking and immediately turned to look at her.

…and then burst out into laughter. Even Kirche, who was surrounded by a group of boys, didn't bother to hide it.

So she really did have boys wrapped around her little finger, Shirou mused. Well, considering her…ah…_assets_, he wasn't especially surprised.

What was that line from that one movie? Something like, "With the right pair of breasts, _anyone_ can take over the world."

Accompanying most of the mages were familiars — animals, some magical, some not — of all kinds. Kirche's salamander was curled up by her chair, and some students had owls, or cats, or ravens. Those were all tame. The truly strange familiars were the floating eyeballs, dog-sized lizards with six legs, and some sort of octopus…_thing_ that was squiggling about as though it needed no more water than a human being.

"I'd known there were some strange magical creatures out there," he muttered to himself, "and I've even seen quite a few myself…but a floating eyeball? _Really_?"

"It's called a bugbear," Louise told him stiffly. She didn't bother to look at him as she made her way to what was probably her seat and sat down.

"The more I see of this world, the more I wonder if it isn't some fevered dream," Shirou chuckled beneath his breath. He moved to take the seat next to Louise, but his hand had no sooner reached for the chair than her head spun around and she lanced him with a glare.

"What?"

"That's a mage's seat," she said condescendingly. "Familiars aren't allowed to sit in it."

Shirou allowed himself a small smirk.

"Then I should be fine," he concluded, and sat down in it anyway. Louise scowled at him and her brow knitted together in an even fiercer glare, but she didn't say anything else.

The door opened and Louise's head spun back around as a plump, middle-aged woman in purple robes and hat walked into the classroom — she must have been the teacher. It all seemed so very surreal; the closest thing his world had to a teaching environment for magic was the lectures at Clock Tower, and even those didn't go into any actual magic.

They had to preserve the mystery, after all.

It just served to further highlight the fact that this was not his world — was this what could have happened if magic had never died? Was this how the world would have gone if magic hadn't weakened, been relegated to secretive mages who practiced far from the prying eyes of others?

Was this what the world might have been like if everyone had been more like Kiritsugu and viewed magic as a means rather than the end?

The woman swept the room with her eyes and gave them all a satisfied smile.

"Well," she said kindly, "it seems as though the Springtime Familiar Summoning was a great success. I always do enjoy seeing the newly summoned familiars each spring. Although…"

Her eyes slid over to Shirou.

"It seems that you've summoned quite a…_peculiar_ familiar, Miss Vallière."

The words and the statement were innocent enough — a bit of confusion and some honest amazement — but all the students around the room burst into laughter as though it were a hilarious joke.

"Louise the Zero!" someone called. "Don't go around grabbing random commoners off the street just because you can't summon anything yourself!"

Louise rocketed out of her seat, splotches of red quickly spreading across her cheeks.

"No! I did everything properly! _He_ was all that appeared!"

She pointed one thin, feminine finger in Shirou's direction.

"Don't lie!" the boy shot back, a blond, heavier set teenager. "I bet you couldn't even cast 'Summon Servant' properly, can you!?"

The other students chuckled.

"Mrs. Chevreuse!" Louise spun back to the teacher. "I've been insulted! Malicorne the Common Cold just insulted me!"

"Windward!" the boy corrected angrily. "I'm Malicorne the Windward! I haven't caught any cold!"

"It's your voice," Louise informed him. "Your hoarse voice makes it sound exactly like you've caught one!"

The boy, Malicorne, stood up out of his seat and leveled a glare at Louise, who glared right back. At the front, the teacher, Chevreuse, made a motion with her wand. Both Louise and Malicorne stiffened, then, against their wills, sat rigidly back in their seats.

Shirou raised an eyebrow, the only outward sign of his surprise.

He couldn't say he knew every magic there was, nor that what he had just seen was impossible, but given what he did know, the amount of power needed to perform a spell that could wrest complete control of a person's body away from that person's mind was not common.

Yes, there were certainly ways to do it that required relatively little power, especially against ordinary humans who didn't possess innate Magic Resistance, but unless you had powerful Mystic Eyes, doing it with the speed of a Single Action as Mrs. Chevreuse had just done was impossible.

Even then, it wasn't so much control as it was hypnotism. When you controlled someone using magic, you were hypnotizing his mind to follow your orders. What Chevreuse had just done was hijack their bodies without manipulating their minds. That was easily pretty high level magic, but she had done it with nothing more than a flick of her wand.

"Unbelievable" was a word for it.

"Scary" was another.

Could all of these mages do such ridiculous things without realizing exactly how extraordinary it was?

"Miss Vallière, Mister Malicorne, please stop this unnecessary argument," Chevreuse said sternly. "Calling classmates 'Zero' or 'Common Cold' is unacceptable. Do you understand?"

"Mrs. Chevreuse, I'm only called that as a joke," Malicorne said. "But for Louise, I was just telling the truth."

Another smattering of laughter broke out, but Chevreuse swept those who'd giggled with a stern glare and snapped her wand in a rough flick — in an instant, everyone who'd so much as chuckled had a mouth full of red clay. Everyone suddenly fell silent.

Shirou's other eyebrow rose to join its twin.

"Now then," Chevreuse said, "let's begin the lesson."

She coughed and waved her wand; on her desk, a small collection of pebbles appeared as if from thin air.

"I am Chevreuse the Red Clay," she said importantly. "This year, I will be teaching you about the magic of the Earth element. Can you tell me the four great magical elements, Mister Malicorne?"

"Ah — y-yes, Mrs. Chevreuse. They are Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth."

Chevreuse gave him an acknowledging nod. "And counting the now lost element of 'Void,' there're five in total. I'm sure all of you are already aware of that. I believe, however, that the magic of Earth is of extreme importance, and not only because my Affinity is Earth or because of personal preference."

She coughed again — Shirou was beginning to wonder if she was sick, or if it was just some sort of verbal tic.

"We use Earth magic for many important things in our lives," Chevreuse went on. "We use it to produce and process important metals, to make buildings from boulders, and even to harvest our crops. Each and every one of us needs Earth magic to live our lives comfortably, mages just as much as commoners."

Shirou frowned thoughtfully. So, he'd been right, then. Magic had replaced technology in this world. Everything that had been done with tools and science back in his world was done with spells in this one.

"Now, please recall, everyone, that the basic of Earth magic is 'transmutation.' I'm sure you've all learned this in your first year, but basics build foundations, so I think we should review it."

She looked down at the pebbles and waved her wand over them, muttering an incantation. The pebbles glowed brightly for a moment, white-hot like burning coals, and then faded to reveal sparkling metal ingots the precise size and shape of the pebbles that had been sitting there before.

Shirou's eyebrows rose again. That looked like…

"Is that g-g-gold, Mrs. Chevreuse?" someone asked incredulously.

"No, it's plain brass. Only Square-class mages are able to transmute gold. I'm just…" Chevreuse gave a self-important cough. "…a Triangle mage," she finished smugly.

Shirou frowned again. Shapes, now? Geometry?

"Master," he whispered.

"What?" Louise hissed. "We're in the middle of a lesson!"

"What does she mean, Triangle and Square?"

"It's the number of elements a mage can add to their spells," she told him hurriedly. "It also determines the level of a mage."

Shirou's brow furrowed. "Number of elements?"

"Well, you can use an Earth spell by itself," Louise explained, "but if you add Fire to it, you can increase its power."

"I see."

No, he really didn't. This system was so very _odd_. You could certainly mix elements back in his own world, but most only had a single Elemental Alignment, and you could only use magic to whose element you were aligned. Average Ones like Rin could use any of the elements at will and combine them as they pleased, but Average Ones were considered extremely rare.

"Those who can stack two elements together, like Earth and Fire, are Line Mages. Mrs. Chevreuse, who can stack three elements, Earth-Earth-Fire, is a Triangle Mage. When you add an element to itself, it just makes it stronger."

"I see," Shirou said again, even though he still didn't, not really. Well, he understood what she was saying, but he didn't understand how it all worked — his frame of reference was too alien. "So how does Mrs. Chevreuse compare, then, as a Triangle Mage? Would you say she's fairly powerful?"

"Of course," Louise said a little harshly. "Most mages never make it past Dot or Line. Triangle mages are pretty powerful, but even they have nothing on Squares."

"And how many can you add, Master?" Shirou asked, honestly curious.

"Miss Vallière!"

Chevreuse had apparently noticed them talking, however, and had suddenly barked out Louise's name before she could answer. Louise stiffened.

"Y-yes!"

"Please refrain from private chatter during lessons."

"I'm sorry…"

"Since you have time to chatter, I guess you think you don't need to review. Perhaps I should have you demonstrate for me?"

Louise fidgeted. "M-me?"

"Yes, you. Try changing these pebbles here into a metal of your choice."

But Louise didn't stand up. She just sat in her seat with a troubled, anxious look on her face, squirming a little uncomfortably.

"Is something the matter, Miss Vallière?" Chevreuse asked.

"Mrs. Chevreuse!" Kirche suddenly called, looking nervous.

"Yes?"

"I think it would be better if she didn't."

"And why is that?"

"It's dangerous," Kirche said bluntly. The majority of the class agreed with a nod.

"Dangerous?" Chevreuse repeated confusedly. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Miss Zerbst."

"This is your first time teaching Louise, right?"

"It is, but I've heard that she's a hard worker. Now, Miss Vallière, don't you worry so much. Just give it a try. You can't succeed if you're afraid of failing."

Louise stood up.

"Don't, Louise!" Kirche cried, her face oddly pale.

But Louise squared her shoulders and said, "I'll do it."

Her first step towards the front of the room was shaky and nervous, but the second was strong and determined. Mrs. Chevreuse stepped aside with a smile as Louise took her position at the desk.

"You just have to visualize the metal you want to transmute it into, Miss Vallière," she told Louise encouragingly.

Louise gave a small nod and waved her wand as she began incanting. She closed her eyes and carefully and slowly moved her wand about in patterns. Shirou leaned forward a little and waited — this would be the first time he had seen her cast since she had summoned him.

Suddenly, the flow of magical energy at the front of the room skyrocketed — way, _way_ higher than Mrs. Chevreuse's had — and Shirou was moving before he had even considered what he was about to do.

His chair let out a terrible screech as he flung himself out of it, planted his foot on the desk in front of him, and, with a harsh push that utterly obliterated the top and sent the rest tumbling backwards, rocketed towards the front of the room.

Time seemed to slow down as the rest of the room shut their eyes and ducked behind their desks, even as the magical energy _pouring_ out of Louise grew even larger. The buildup was reaching critical levels, a clinical part of his mind noted. It wouldn't be long before it finally reacted and released itself in one, great wave.

An explosion.

The red scarf that had been wound loosely around his neck came free as he tugged it off and landed next to Louise — it was a holy shroud that rejected fire that he had received during one of his joint ventures with the Church. His Circuits flipped on in an instant, even as Louise looked at him with surprise and her wand hand jerked up while she was distracted.

The scarf transformed into a sheet large enough to cover a single person — it reacted to Prana by stretching out — and Shirou wound it around himself as he pulled Louise into his arms, ignoring her surprised squeak.

Barely an instant later, a great, loud BOOM echoed throughout the room and washed over Shirou with enough force to knock a normal man clear off his feet.

Naturally, Shirou managed to stay standing.

What followed was pandemonium.

The intensity of the sound and the concussive force of the explosion even rattled the floor beneath Shirou's feet, and the sudden noise startled all of the familiars into action — he pulled away the shroud in enough time to see Kirche's salamander shoot awake and let out a panicked gout of flame, a manticore throw itself out the window, breaking the glass in the process, and every single bird leaping off their masters' shoulders and taking flight, squawking.

There was a distinct ringing in Shirou's ears.

"I told you!" Kirche cried vindictively as she pointed one brown finger at Louise. "I told you not to let her do it!"

"Jeez, Vallière!" someone shouted. "Save all of us some trouble and just quit school already!"

Mrs. Chevreuse lied on the floor next to them, twitching occasionally and covered in black, stunned unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. He supposed he should be thankful that the explosion had been more flash and bang than force and power — more sound and light than destruction. The shroud would've protected them from the absolute worst of it, but even such a thing wasn't strong enough to stop a full force explosion.

In that case, his clothing probably would've absorbed most of the damage, but the force would still have rattled his brain. He wasn't sure, and he wasn't eager to test it out.

He supposed, however, that she probably hadn't been in any danger — if Chevreuse was any indication, then Louise would've been just fine if he hadn't jumped in front of her. It seemed, however, that this wasn't an uncommon occurrence, nor were her failures particularly surprising or life-threatening. That was probably why the other students had been less concerned about being reduced to tiny chunks of meat than they were about the explosion itself — even the students in the first row, closest to the front, hadn't tried to get further away to avoid being blown up.

Shirou kneeled down and looked over his petite little Master — she appeared unharmed, if a little shaken. "Are you alright, Master?"

"Fine," she mumbled, taking a step past him and staring, transfixed, at the podium — the pebbles were gone, but it appeared otherwise undamaged, marred only by black scorch marks.

Oddly incongruent — an explosion powerful enough to topple a grown adult, but still too weak to destroy a wooden podium?

"Looks like I messed up a little," Louise said feebly.

"A little?!" someone demanded immediately. "That wasn't 'a little,' Louise the Zero!"

Answering calls agreed with the first speaker, jeering and shooting insults down at her. Each one was like a physical blow, and he could see Louise cringe with every single one.

"You can't do anything right!"

"You should just quit!"

"You're a failure!"

"As always, your success rate is ZERO!"

Well, now…at the very least, it seemed he knew why everyone called her "Louise the Zero."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"So then, _that_ is why they call you 'Zero.'"

They finished cleaning the classroom shortly before lunchtime — Shirou had been forced (but he would've volunteered if she hadn't ordered him anyway) to help Louise, with the proviso that the classroom could not be cleaned with magic — which was fine, because Louise apparently couldn't cast magic properly and Shirou wasn't quite prepared to reveal his own magic to her, especially for something as mundane as cleaning.

Mrs. Chevreuse had woken up about two hours after Louise's catastrophic failure, but even though she had picked up where she left off and continued to teach, she didn't lecture on Transmutation for the rest of the day.

Perhaps she had been scarred by the explosion and was too traumatized to try again. It shouldn't be funny, but just the idea made Shirou want to laugh.

A teacher, traumatized by the failure of one student that hadn't even resulted in serious injury. How flimsy and self-conscious did you have to be to be affected by something like that in a world where magic was as normal as breathing?

Louise had spent most of the time they had been cleaning scrubbing halfheartedly with a troubled look on her face, and Shirou, who had had to do the lion's share of the work as a result, thought that she had probably been more focused on her failure and the jeering of her classmates than she had on getting the room clean. He had never had that trouble, but that was mostly because he'd never been concerned with what people thought about him.

Louise was different. She had been brought up as a noble in a noble family in a world where every mage could cast magic with as little effort as it took to lift their arms, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't cast properly. For a girl whose place had always been assured before and was now suddenly in doubt, who had believed with all her heart that she belonged in her family amongst other mages, but was, for some reason, unable to do any magic properly, it would have been heartbreaking.

Without magic, she would lose everything she held dear. She could not live up to her family's expectations. She could not expect to get a better job than as a serving girl to some other noble (and wouldn't that be a kick in the teeth, a daily reminder of what she could-have-been-should-have-been but was not?). Her entire world would fall out from underneath her.

She had placed all her hopes on the summoning spell, that if she could somehow summon something beautiful, majestic, and powerful, she could stop being the Zero, stop being a failure, and finally regain some semblance of what she had believed should be her life.

But it had not happened. She was still a failure. She could still not cast magic properly. Her familiar was a human, unprecedented and _wrong_. The great, powerful, majestic magical beast she had been expecting, like a noble dragon or a strong, regal manticore, had not appeared. She was a failure who couldn't even summon a proper familiar, who couldn't even cast a simple levitation spell.

Yes, after just a day with Louise, Shirou knew that this was her situation.

But there was a silver lining.

Even amongst her failures, there was something to be said about her situation.

"I suppose it would've been far more humiliating if you'd cast the spell and nothing had happened," Shirou mused. "But an explosion is _something_, even if it wasn't what you wanted."

And that was it. If it were simply that she was not a mage, then nothing would have happened at all. If she wasn't a mage, then she would've said the incantation, waved her wand, and nothing would've happened. The fact that the spell had backfired and caused an explosion meant only that she was trying the wrong method or trying to force herself to use the wrong element.

Louise didn't seem to see it that way; she glared at him from over her shoulder.

"Stupid familiar," she muttered angrily. "This isn't _funny_!"

"I never said it was," Shirou pointed out.

She stopped and spun around, and he could see tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Shirou blinked, then scolded himself. How had he not noticed just how badly her failure had affected her?

"No," she admitted furiously, a slight tremble to her voice, "but you're thinking it, aren't you!? Louise the Zero, she can't do anything right! She can't transmute! She can't cast magic! Not Fire, or Water, or Earth, or Wind! She's useless! She can't even perform the summoning spell right! Even her _familiar_ thinks she's a failure!"

She gestured furiously with one arm, and two tears blazed wet paths down her cheeks, but to her credit, she didn't sniffle or hiccup at all.

"She must have thought everything would get better when she summoned!" Louise continued. "If she got a griffin or a dragon, then everything would've changed, wouldn't it? She should've known better! She shouldn't have even tried!"

Her cheeks were red and her shoulders shook, but she didn't so much as sob. She contained herself. Even though tears were pouring down her face and drip-drip-dripping onto the floor, she didn't sniffle or sob.

"Every spell she tries blows up!" she ranted on. "Even though she comes from a respectable family of mages, she can't use any magic at all! She might as well quit! She might as well give up! She might as well crawl in a ditch and die! Isn't that right, familiar?! Isn't that what you think?! That's what everyone _else_ thinks!"

"Louise," Shirou started softly. It was the first time he'd called her by name, he would later realize.

"Well, I don't have to take that from you!" she shouted before he could say anything. "No dinner! No meals for the rest of the day! In fact, I don't even want to see you! Just leave! Get out of my sight and don't come back!"

She spun away from him and stood there silently, shoulders shaking. He heard her sniffle quietly, and for a moment, considered disobeying her and going to comfort her. She needed it. She really did.

But what would he say? What would happen if he showed her he could do magic?

It would be another blow to her pride — even her _familiar_ could cast magic better than she could. She would be furious and depressed and who _knew_ what she might do in that state on top of what she was feeling now?

Pick your battles, Shirou, he thought.

He could still save her. But not yet. He had to time it right, or else he would do the exact opposite, and then he would have a young girl's suicide on his shoulders. He could never forgive himself for that level of failure — he would not become EMIYA. He would save everyone he possibly could.

So, instead of walking to her and comforting her, Shirou steeled his voice and said, "As you command, Master."

It took all of his strength not to turn back around as he walked away.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Shirou's feet carried him to a hallway he'd never been to before, an empty, unfamiliar hallway that was completely devoid of anyone and anything, and when he realized that, he stopped, turned to the wall, and punched it.

The wall shuddered and shook, but didn't collapse — he'd managed to control himself _that_ much, at least. There was no point in demolishing the school just because he was feeling a little anxious.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"You can't save everyone," he said quietly.

Like a broken record, the words replayed in his ears again and again. You can't save everyone.

You can't save everyone.

You can't save everyone.

He had already known that. He had already known that it wasn't possible to save everyone, no matter how hard he tried. He'd railed against the idea, refused to give up, refused to fall into the trap that his alternate counterpart had suffered from. He would never stop trying. He would never give up. He would save as many people as he could.

It didn't matter if it was borrowed. It didn't matter if that ideal wasn't originally his. Even if it was impossible, even if there was no way it could come true, wasn't it a beautiful ideal anyway? Did not that make it worth following?

But…

But these people, this place, this world, it wasn't his own. It wasn't his responsibility. Why should he sacrifice his world and his responsibility to it for this world, for these people? Why was he trying to save a little girl mage who had pulled him away from everything he'd known and cared for?

Why wasn't he trying his damnedest to find a way home?

"_Even if the day should come when you no longer need my assistance in combat, please rely on me. So long as you do, I shall never leave you."_

_Never alone, striving for Utopia._

He smiled, a small, bittersweet smile.

"Just when I start to wonder why I walk this path," he murmured fondly, "you find a way to remind me, Saber."

He whispered a word, the trigger for his particular mystery, and a golden ripple that appeared over his palm dropped a stuffed lion into his hand.

The lion had clearly seen better days — a good portion of the stitching was frayed, one of his six whiskers was missing, and the black buttons that formed his eyes were dulled and unpolished. Considering that it was nearly fifty years old, however, it was in remarkably good shape.

He'd made sure to keep it that way, and had purposefully asked Rin to teach him some magecraft specifically to prevent it from falling apart and to fix it up if it ever did.

It might have seemed silly for someone his age (or even someone who _looked_ as old as he did) to be so attached to what was, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary stuffed lion, a child's toy, but it was the only tangible reminder he had of Saber. Excalibur, or at least an image resembling Excalibur, existed in the Blade Works, and so did Rhongomyniad, Carnwennan, and Caliburn, but they were all swords, spears, and daggers, all weapons that were a part of his distorted perception, and he had to pull them into the world in order for them to exist anywhere but inside his head.

This stuffed lion was real. It was a real object, not a Projection. Saber had held it, had cherished it, once upon a time. It had been hers, and it was the only thing he could reach out and touch, the only real remnant of her time in his life. Everything else was just images and memories.

That was why Shirou cherished this unassuming little lion. That was why he preserved it in his vault next to priceless treasures like Balmung and Draupnir and all the other items he had collected over the years.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted.

Shirou jumped slightly in surprise and quickly returned the lion to his vault, spinning around to see the speaker.

It turned out to be a young girl who couldn't have been much older than Louise, dressed in a maid's outfit with bobbed black hair and just the _hint_ of Asian features.

"Is something the matter?" she asked politely.

"No," he said, a bit more rudely than he'd intended. "I mean, it's nothing."

"My apologies," the girl said with a short bow, "but it seemed like you were troubled and — wait, didn't you have a stuffed lion just a moment ago?"

"No," he replied calmly, feigning ignorance. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

She blinked.

"Must have been my imagination," she muttered to herself. She blinked owlishly. "Ah! Forgive my rudeness, but would you happen to be Miss Vallière's familiar?"

"Oh?" Shirou arched an eyebrow. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less — gossip travels faster than the speed of light."

"Speed of light?" the girl questioned with a slight tilt of her head.

"Don't worry about it," Shirou brushed it off. "So, you've heard of me, then?"

"Oh, yes!" she said brightly. "It's become quite the rumor, you know, that a commoner was called by the summoning magic. The whole castle is talking about it!"

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Shirou commented wryly. "Well, you're obviously not a student or a teacher. Are you employed here, then?"

"Yes," she answered with a nod. She still seemed rather excited. "I'm Siesta. I do domestic duties here at the school, like cleaning and serving tea. Pleased to meet you, Mister…?"

"Shirou," he replied. "Shirou Emiya, Miss Siesta."

She flushed a little and smiled. "No need to be so formal, Mister Shirou. My, that's an odd name."

"I'm not from around here," he told her sardonically.

"Oh!" Siesta seemed to remember something. "That's right! Mister Shirou, I noticed you here all by yourself. Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing important," Shirou said. "My Master and I had a bit of an argument and she told me to leave. I'll return to her later."

She gasped.

"That's horrible!" Siesta proclaimed sympathetically. "Mister Shirou, is there any way I could help you?"

At that moment, Shirou's stomach chose to let out a loud grumble.

"Well," he said a little embarrassedly, "now that you mention it…"

"You must be hungry!" she chirped with a bright smile. "I have just the thing!"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Siesta led him to the kitchens located at the rear of the dining hall. Pots, pans, ovens, and cooking utensils of all sorts were lined up in rows inside while chefs and maids like Siesta buzzed around, busily preparing food for the next meal.

Siesta, with one of his hands grasped in hers, guided him to a small table and sat him down in one of the chairs set up around it.

"Please wait here for a moment," she said quickly, and then she turned around and disappeared into the throng of chefs and cooks.

Shirou allowed himself a small smile.

How long had it been since he had last cooked in a proper kitchen, let alone in his own home? Meals on the road or in camps were often cooked over a fire with only as many spices as you could gather yourself from nearby foliage. Most of his cooking for the past few years had been of that sort, mediocre meals made to the best of his ability with whatever sparse ingredients he could get his hands on and from whatever small game the group had managed to hunt down with what little time was available.

He didn't regret it, of course. His cooking might have suffered, but in exchange, he got the chance to help people, to save others and stop catastrophes. So what if he didn't get to make gourmet dishes while on the road? Being someone's hero, saving someone, was more important than making them an all-you-can-eat buffet.

He still missed it. How could he not? There was something uniquely satisfying about watching someone enjoy something you had created, and the joy of a good meal was a unique kind of happiness.

Siesta returned a moment later and set a big bowl of stew down in front of him — Shirou's stomach gurgled with anticipation.

"We made this stew from the leftovers of the nobles' meal," Siesta informed him. "Please enjoy it."

Shirou took the spoon she offered him and dipped it into the bowl, fishing out some meat and vegetables, then lifted it to his mouth and ate it.

It was delicious.

"Is it to your liking?" Siesta asked him quietly, sounding a little nervous.

"My stomach weeps," Shirou said solemnly, watching her face fall, and smiled, "because I haven't had food this good in quite a long time."

"Oh!" she exclaimed happily. "That's great! There's plenty more if you want seconds, so please take your time! If you don't mind having whatever's available, then you're welcome to eat here whenever you like!"

Shirou brought his spoon down to the bowl and scooped up another spoonful again and again, trying to pace himself — he hadn't lied to her. It had indeed been quite a while since he had eaten something of such quality, despite the fact that it was leftovers, and moreover, it had been more than a day since he had last eaten anything at all. It took quite a bit of effort not to wolf it all down at once, but to savor it, to eat it slowly and let the flavor rain down upon his taste buds like a gift from heaven.

Siesta sat down at the other chair and propped her elbows up on the table and her head on her hands.

"Weren't you given anything to eat?" she asked him.

"My Master and I had a disagreement," Shirou said in between swallows. "She forbade me from eating today."

"That's horrible!" Siesta cried.

Shirou shook his head.

"My Master is delicate," he explained after swallowing again. "She does not trust easy. You should not blame her for that; _I_ don't."

How could he? She was just a child, a young girl who felt she needed to prove herself, and falling further and further into depression with every failure. She couldn't afford to trust him, not yet, not until she knew he was sincere. He was a stranger whose intentions she didn't know — not even _Shirou_ trusted that easily.

Perhaps, in hindsight, his rushed attempt to educate her had been a mistake.

Siesta gave a dreamy sigh. "You're so kind, Mister Shirou. I don't think I could have been as understanding as you if I had been in your position."

"Thank you, Miss Siesta," Shirou thanked her politely. "Now…"

He held out his empty bowl.

"More, please?"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"You really don't have to do this, Mister Shirou," Siesta told him for the tenth time

"Nonsense," Shirou disagreed. "I promised to repay you for your kindness, so that's what I'm doing."

After he'd eaten his fill (another two helpings after that first one), Shirou had asked Siesta what he could do to show his appreciation. At first, she'd refused to inconvenience him (it was hardly an inconvenience, considering that he had nothing else to do), but after he'd stood his ground on this issue, she'd relented and told him that she was to serve desserts to the nobles.

Shirou's job was simply to hold the platter (a relatively easy task, really) while Siesta served the cakes atop in to the students with a pair of tongs. It was unhurried menial work that he could have done in his sleep, and to be honest, as the faces started to blur together and the people just became flesh-colored blobs, he wasn't too sure that he hadn't.

There was one boy, however, who stuck out, a wavy-haired blonde boy with a frilly white blouse and an arrogant, self-important look on his face. There was a rose stuck in his shirt pocket, and if Shirou were honest, the boy reminded him uncomfortably of Matou Shinji

"So, Guiche, who're you going out with, now?"

"Go out?" Guiche made a gesture with his one hand. "I hold no single girl in such regard. After all, a rose blooms for the pleasure of all, not just one."

Yes, he was _too much_ like Shinji for Shirou's comfort. A scene like this had been not uncommon back in Homurabara, before the Grail War had scattered so many of them and changed so many others.

High school was high school, no matter _what_ reality you were in.

Guiche made another dramatic motion with his arm, and from his pocket, a small glass phial with a purple liquid dropped to the floor. Guiche didn't seem to notice or care, though from the small, satisfied twitch of his lips, perhaps it had been intentional. From the faint sickly sweet smell that Shirou could detect (though it was difficult, with all of the soil-charcoal-river-fresh-air that floated around him from all of the mages), it contained perfume.

Shirou paused for a moment, frowned, and considered what it was he should do.

It was unbecoming. He should just leave it be and continue on. He was too old to be scolding schoolboys and children for their inadequacies and mistakes, but…

But…

Shirou set the platter down on one of the tables and stepped forward.

He would save this boy, too.

He reached down and picked up the bottle, then set it down on the table loudly. Guiche and his friends stopped talking at once.

"You should be careful," Shirou said in a mild, vaguely friendly tone. "If you drop something valuable without realizing it, then it might get taken before you realize it's gone."

Guiche sneered at him and pushed the bottle away. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he declared snobbishly. "This isn't mine."

"Oh!" one of Guiche's friends exclaimed. "Hey, that's Montmorency's perfume, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" the other agreed. "Only Montmorency's personal perfume is that vivid shade of purple!"

"Hey, wait, does that mean you're dating Montmorency, Guiche?"

"No, hang on, listen to me—!"

But before Guiche could continue, a girl, a first year judging by her brown cloak, who had been sitting nearby stood up and walked over to Guiche, trembling.

"Sir Guiche," she said faintly, and then burst out crying. "I knew it! You and Montmorency are…are…!"

"Listen, Katie," Guiche tried, reaching for her, "please, it's just a misunderstanding —"

But the girl, Katie, refused to listen anymore, wound back her arm, and slapped him on the cheek as hard as she could. Shirou almost wanted to whistle — she had quite an arm on her, that one.

Guiche rubbed at the reddening mark on his cheek absently

Just when it seemed the whole situation had finished playing out, another girl rose to her feet and took stiff, clipped strides over to Guiche. She had long curly blonde hair styled into curled rolls the way Shirou had seen only on women and wigs from pictures of the eighteenth century European nobility, and he vaguely recognized her as one of the girls who had teased Louise just the day before after the summoning.

Apparently, she was important, because the moment he saw her, Guiche desperately tried to diffuse her.

"Montmorency," he began, "please, this is a misunderstanding. I accompanied her on a trip to the forests of La Rochelle, that's all, nothing more!"

"You…!" Montmorency seethed. "You've been making moves on that first year, haven't you?!"

"Please, Montmorency," Guiche said, "it's nothing like that, I promise!"

"Guiche…"

She grabbed an opened bottle of wine from the table and tipped it upside down over Guiche's head, pouring its contents all over him and dying his hair a sickening red color and staining his white shirt pink. She didn't pour just a little of it — she waited until the entire bottle had been drained, then slammed it back down on the table furiously.

"You liar!" she shouted.

Then, without waiting for anything else, she stormed off.

In her wake, there was only silence.

Guiche watched her go, absently pulling out a handkerchief and drying off his face.

"A rose blooms for the pleasure of all," he murmured again.

Shirou almost wanted to laugh.

"Well," he mused quietly, "that went rather better than I'd planned it. I had thought I would have to teach that lesson myself, but it seems the world decided to give me a hand."

He stood straight and moved to leave. He'd been helping Siesta before the fiasco started, so he might as well finish up with that.

"Stop right there."

Except Guiche's voice called out into the silence and made him pause.

"Is there something you need from me?" Shirou asked neutrally.

Guiche spun in his chair and crossed his legs dramatically. Shirou retracted his previous opinion — even _Shinji_ hadn't been quite this bad when it came to theatrics and arrogance.

Or perhaps the difference was in kinds? Shinji's arrogance was partly a facet of his selfishness. Here, it seemed like Guiche's selfishness was a facet of his arrogance, and even then, it was more pomposity than selfishness.

"Two ladies' reputations have been tarnished," Guiche said grandiosely, "because you thoughtlessly picked up a bottle of perfume. How do you intend to take responsibility for this?"

It really was almost funny, if it weren't also so disgusting.

"Responsibility?" Shirou asked incredulously. "For your mistakes? I'm not your father, boy, so don't ask me to take responsibility for your messes."

Guiche's friends laughed.

"He's right, Guiche! Man up!"

Guiche's face flushed crimson to match his sopping hair.

"Listen, server," he said dangerously, "when you set that bottle on the table, I pretended I didn't recognize it, didn't I? Would it have been so hard for you to have some tact and play along?"

"I don't take orders from you, boy," Shirou said, crossing his arms. "And you'll thank me one day, for what just happened."

"Orders…? Ah," Guiche sneered. "You're that commoner swordsman that Louise the Zero summoned, aren't you? I shouldn't have expected a noble's wit from such a plebian and a brute."

Shirou snorted.

"If you're looking to insult me," he shot back, "then I'm unimpressed. I've heard _much_ worse. I suppose the one good thing about that is the fact that you aren't actually the most arrogant person I've ever met."

Gilgamesh held that dubious honor.

Guiche's eyes narrowed. "It seems that you don't understand the proper etiquette for addressing a noble, commoner."

"Respect is something that's earned, not freely given," Shirou told him. "If you want me to respect you, then you have to be someone worth respecting."

Guiche sneered again.

"Very well," he said imperiously, "then I will teach you why you should respect your betters, commoner. It should be a good way of relieving stress, too."

He stood and turned away.

"It would be in poor taste to taint the dining hall with your blood," Guiche's voice dripped with condescension, "so we'll have our duel in the Vestri Court. I'll see you there once you've finished your duties as a servant."

With a flourish of his cape, Guiche strode out of the hall with his nose tilted up in the air disdainfully. After a moment of glancing between where Guiche had gone and where Shirou stood, Guiche's friends got up and followed, looking excited.

When everyone else had left, Shirou was alone with Siesta.

He couldn't help but think it was rather convenient. Here he was, looking for a way to prove his strength and his sincerity to Louise, and one just landed in his lap so easily and so quickly…

"Well," he remarked wryly, "I'd been planning for something of this nature to happen eventually, but I never thought it would happen so soon. I guess it has something to do with my ridiculously high Luck stat."

He straightened. "I should probably find Louise. This is the opportunity I was waiting for."

"You…" Siesta started quietly.

He gave her a questioning glance.

"Hm?"

"You're going to get killed!" she cried.

"Try to have a little faith," Shirou said with a grin.

Siesta shook her head desperately. "If you truly anger a noble like that…!"

She turned around and ran away. Shirou blinked, but didn't stop her. She was a nice girl, but Siesta wasn't his Master, nor was she the one he had to prove himself to, so if she didn't want to watch the duel, he wasn't about to force her.

But he _did_ need to prove himself to Louise. What would happen in this world for the duration of his stay, how much Louise relied on him, how easily he had access to materials and magics that might lead him home, depended entirely upon Louise trusting him. She could only trust him if she knew he was sincere, and with such doubt in her from the lecture he had tried to give her the previous night, the only way to prove his sincerity was to prove that he hadn't lied.

And the only way to do that was to prove he was as strong as he'd claimed he was.

"I should probably find Louise, then," he mused aloud. "Ah — and I'll need her to show me where this Vestri Court is, won't I? I suppose she might be in her room by now…"

"You!"

A familiar voice called out. Shirou turned around as Louise marched up to him, washed and dressed in a new uniform. She came to a stop a few feet away and pointed one finger at him.

"What do you think you're doing?!" she demanded. "Do you think that just because I was angry at you earlier that you could go and embarrass me like this?!"

"Oh, Master," Shirou said lightly, ignoring her distress. "Good. That means I won't have to waste time trying to find you. I'm afraid I'm not yet familiar with the layout of this castle, so I have to ask that you show me where this Vestri Court is located."

"Don't just brush me off!" she yelled. "No, even more important than that — I refuse to let you do something as stupid as duel Guiche! Apologize!"

Shirou arched an eyebrow. "Apologize? Master —"

"If you apologize now," Louise cut him off, "then he might forgive you and let you go! If you don't, then he might actually kill you! At the very least, you'll be badly injured! There are some things that even a water mage can't fix!"

"Master," Shirou tried again.

"A commoner can't beat a mage! If you fight Guiche, then you'll be lucky to come away alive!" Louise declared it as though it were indisputable fact, like the world was round or grass was green. "And I…I refuse to let my familiar be killed! Not…"

Her head lowered and her voice softened. "Not when I only just summoned you."

Shirou sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Louise…"

"It's the only thing I've done even remotely right," she said quietly. "So…I…I'm willing to forgive everything else you've done. I'll even…I'll even let you eat at the table tomorrow. Just don't die for something as stupid as a duel."

Shirou allowed himself a small, grim smile.

"Master," he said strongly, "I told you last night that my strength was far beyond an ordinary human's. Last night, you didn't believe me, and from what little I have seen of this world, I can understand why. So that's why…"

He was going to prove it to her now. He was going to show her exactly what it was she had summoned, exactly how strong he was. When she saw what he could do, she would understand that everything he had told her was the truth. She would see that he was better than any other familiar she could have summoned.

This world's dragons, manticores, and griffins had _nothing _on him.

"I will prove to you my sincerity."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The Vestri Court was the central garden located between the Fire and Wind elemental towers — at least, that was how Louise explained it to him. As it was on the western side of the castle, it didn't receive much sunlight during the day and was mostly hidden in the shadow of the central tower that contained the Alviss Dining Hall. As a result, it was almost ideally placed if you wanted to have a secret duel.

In theory, anyway, but as Shirou had estimated before, gossip traveled faster than light, which was the reason why it was packed with students as Shirou stepped through the crowd to join Guiche at its center.

"Gentlemen! It's a duel!"

Guiche gestured grandiosely with his rose, and the crowd cheered in response. Like Shinji, indeed.

"Guiche is going to duel Louise's commoner!" someone shouted.

Guiche acknowledged the cheering with long, sweeping waves of his arms. The crowd seemed to eat it up; Shirou just thought he looked rather ridiculous.

At last, after nearly ten minutes of pandering to his cheering classmates, Guiche turned to Shirou as if he had just realized he was there.

"First of all," Guiche said dramatically, "I commend you for coming here instead of running away!"

"Of course." Shirou allowed himself a small grin. "It seems that even I have this wretched thing called 'pride.'"

"As you say, commoner," Guiche sneered. "Very well, let us begin, shall we?"

He flicked his rose and a single petal fluttered downwards to the ground — and then, suddenly, a figure erupted from the earth, large and metallic and humanoid, gleaming in the faint sunlight. It was feminine and about Shirou's height, a stoic figure whose entire body was covered by — no, _made of_ — shining bronze armor.

A golem?

Shirou's mind rewound the scene and played it over again. Guiche's wand, what was evidently a fake rose, had flicked once — that was a Single Action, no incantation — and a single rose petal had hit the ground.

Flashy, but unimportant.

From the point of contact, a fully formed bronze golem had been created quickly and easily. He could not detect anything physically inferior about it that could have been the result of abandoning an incantation, so maybe Guiche had simply built the magic into the rose petal and used that to enact a Greater Ritual in what looked like a Single Action?

No, that was what made sense to Shirou based upon what he knew of the magic of his world, and it was the idea that he wanted desperately to believe, but he wasn't foolish enough to think so. No, despite the fact that it should be impossible, despite the fact that it could definitely bode ill at a later point, the only real conclusion Shirou could draw was very simple.

Guiche had just performed an A-Rank spell, the equivalent of a Greater Ritual or one of Rin's best gems, in the speed and with the ease of a Single Action.

Shirou let out a breath.

It was a ludicrous idea, yes. It should be impossible, yes. It would have boded quite ill, yes, if not for a single fact.

The creation of the golem in front of him was definitely A-Ranked magic, and the golem itself was definitely stronger and more powerful than a regular human…

But it was nothing compared to him.

"I am Guiche de Gramont. My Runic name is 'the Bronze," Guiche said importantly. "Guiche the Bronze. Therefore, this bronze Valkyrie will be your opponent."

Shirou allowed himself a small, humorless smile.

"Very well then," Shirou said strongly. "Since you have given me your name, it's only proper that I respond in kind. I am Shirou Emiya, Apeiron Lepida Leitoyrgei, and though I have no Runic name, if I did, it would be something like 'the Steel.'"

"Stupid commoner," Guiche sneered. "Only nobles have Runic names."

"As you say," Shirou conceded easily.

He glanced at the Valkyrie again, then out at the students who were watching with anxious anticipation.

"You're going to want to step back," he told the crowd. "If you don't back away at least ten yards, then I can't guarantee I won't kill you by mistake."

None of them listened, just whispered to each other about how "presumptuous that commoner is."

Well. There was nothing he could do about that. Maybe they would listen when they saw something impressive.

He probably shouldn't use Escalvatine. No, that would be a bad idea. He didn't know exactly how strong this Valkyrie of Guiche's was, but he wasn't going to use his most powerful weapon against it.

"It seems rather ill-advised to use a Last Phantasm in a schoolyard brawl against a snot-nosed brat," Shirou mused aloud — loudly enough for Guiche to hear him.

"A Last Phantom? What, is that some sort of barbarian sword technique?" Guiche demanded. "No, forget about that — did you just call me a brat, commoner?!"

Shirou ignored him and considered which sword to use.

Well, the point wasn't to turn this kid into a smear on the ground, it was to save him, and to prove his own sincerity to Louise, so there was no reason to use something that would level a mountain. No, it would be a better idea to go with something that wouldn't be catastrophic or utterly destroy Guiche on accident if this Valkyrie actually turned out to be tougher than he'd first estimated.

By the same token, however, he shouldn't use something that might break under the stress, either. He should use something like…

Ah. Yeah, that would work just fine.

Instead of reaching for the golden hilt sheathed in Sarras, he lifted his right arm up, across his chest, and over his shoulder the way he had seen Gilgamesh do many times before. Behind him, though he could not see it himself, he knew an orb of golden light, only about twice the size of his fist, had formed.

This was the other function of the sheath Sarras, a portal to another world that contained all the treasures Emiya Shirou had ever collected.

"So I think," he continued solemnly; a metal hilt that he couldn't see came slowly from inside the golden orb and brushed across his fingers as it moved to fill his empty hand, "that I'll use something a little more…_tame_."

He pulled the sword free from his vault and hefted it with just his right hand — it was a steel greatsword with polished and inhuman perfection, crafted by the dwarves and easily as long from tip to pommel as Louise was tall, and yet he held it as though it weighed nothing.

This was Balmung, the Phantasmal Greatsword, once wielded by the great hero Siegfried (or Sigurd, depending upon your preference), a story of a king and a knight to match the legend of King Arthur.

"This should be enough," he decided. He felt the incredulous stares of the other students on his back, who had all fallen silent. "See, I've even left the safety on for you — no chance I might accidentally turn you into a fine powder."

Predictably, no one got the joke. The price of living in a technologically stunted world, he supposed.

"S-summoning magic?" Guiche stuttered disbelievingly. "No, that must've been creating a sword from nothing…Earth Magic? How did you do something like that? Don't tell me that the Zero actually managed to summon a _mage_?!"

"I have already said it several times," Shirou told him and the crowd, "if the measure of a mage is in what he summons as his familiar, then my Master is the strongest mage here because she summoned me."

He pointed the sword, tip first, at Guiche. "Now, are you going to fight me, mage, or did I pull this sword from my vault simply to have it admired?"

Guiche flinched and flicked his wand again, and from the ground, up sprouted five more golems, each identical to the first, each made of gleaming bronze and armored like a medieval knight.

"Attack!" Guiche ordered.

At this command, all six Valkyries sprung into action and soared towards Shirou faster than any human could hope to go. They were agile creatures that were heavy, but nimble, and could probably have outpaced an Olympic athlete.

But Shirou…was at least an order of magnitude above even that.

As the first Valkyrie came barreling towards him, Shirou swung Balmung one-handed with all of his strength and cleaved it clean in half, bisecting it from shoulder to hip. That should have been it — the first one would go down, but he would have to take the others down one by one individually.

But as the pieces of the first Valkyrie fell to the ground in front of him, the wind swept aside by the swing of his sword hit the second and third Valkyries and sliced them in half, too, just as cleanly and just neatly as it had the first, and still, continued on far enough to crash into the fourth — blunted — but strong enough to absolutely demolish its chest and send it reeling backwards into the ones behind it, and they all collapsed onto the ground.

In a single swing, Shirou had destroyed four of Guiche's bronze Valkyries as though they were made of _paper_.

The silence that followed was deafening. No one seemed to move — even the other Valkyries just came to a stop. No, of course they all stopped. Shirou, a human being, a _commoner_, had just destroyed four golems, all made of metal sturdy enough to block a regular sword, with just _one_ swing.

Well, he mused, it probably wouldn't have happened so neatly if they hadn't all come at him one after the other. He'd been spoiled by facing so many enemies who actually knew what they were doing, so this tactically inept schoolboy just didn't measure up.

"Th-that's impossible!" someone shouted into the silence.

"By the Founder!"

"Was that _Wind Magic_?"

"No way! What the _hell_ did the Zero summon!?"

"Apologies," Shirou said to Guiche. He adjusted the power he was putting behind his sword and gave Balmung a test swing — this time, instead of utterly destroying whatever was in front of it, it just sent the grass dancing. There, that should be enough. "I'm afraid I underestimated my own strength, there — or perhaps I should say, I overestimated the strength of these Valkyries of yours. Sorry. It should be fine, now, so whenever you're ready."

Again, everyone fell silent. No one said a word for a long moment that stretched into a minute, and then two. It was stunned disbelief, a natural reaction to hearing something that should be completely and utterly impossible.

It was Guiche who broke it.

"A-are you _mocking me_?!" Guiche demanded frantically. "Y-you actually expect me to believe that…that you _destroyed_ _**four **_of my bronze Valkyries with nothing more than your own arm strength!? Don't be ridiculous!"

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Shirou replied blandly.

"No way," someone whispered incredulously, so loud that they might as well have shouted.

"With just his _arm_ _strength_!"

"Without even using _magic_!"

"Are you going to continue, Guiche the Bronze?" Shirou asked solemnly. "Or would you prefer to forfeit before you further embarrass yourself?"

Guiche's cheeks flushed red, and he waved his wand again — his remaining Valkyries sprang into action as another four sprouted from the ground, and then they all, seven in total, surrounded Shirou and attacked at once.

And with a single broad stroke, Shirou cleaved all seven in half at the waist.

Guiche flinched and stumbled backwards, and Shirou burst out of the lumbering corpses he'd left behind with a sudden speed that was beyond human. Before Guiche could retreat more than two steps, Shirou had already crossed the distance that separated them — a measly ten yards, child's play — and, purposefully controlling his strength, planted his knee into Guiche's chest.

Guiche went down, hard, and let out a gasp as he landed on his back in the grass and the air was driven from his lungs. Shirou reared back his arm, a serious scowl on his face, and drove the point of his sword downwards.

Guiche, catching sight of the gleam of the blade in the sunlight, let out a breathless scream and shut his eyes tight. The crowd around them let out a large, horrified gasp, and someone gave a shrill panicked scream, calling Guiche's name.

But Shirou did not kill him.

Of course not. Killing Guiche had never been the point, nor had it ever been something he'd seriously considered doing. The point was to prove his worth to Louise and to save Guiche. How could you save someone if you killed them?

So Balmung's blade did not cleave Guiche's head from his shoulders, but pierced the ground next to it with a dull, metallic thud. Guiche flinched, but after a moment, blinked open his eyes and looked disbelievingly at the shiny sword that was embedded in the grass just inches from his left ear.

"Right here and now, I could have ended your life," Shirou told him. Guiche's gaze turned from Balmung and met Shirou's. "If it had been my intention, Guiche the Bronze, nothing in this school could have stopped me from killing you. Do you understand?"

"I…I do," Guiche whispered hoarsely.

Shirou gave him a grim, satisfied nod. "Then today, I have taught you two lessons: humility and mercy."

He balled up his free hand and punched Guiche once, just once, in the eye. Guiche jerked beneath the hit and gave a groan from under Shirou's knee. Shirou stood and brought his knee up off of Guiche's chest; the moment he'd been freed, Guiche reach both hands up to press them against his right eye, already bruising.

"_That_," Shirou said gravely, "is so that you remember them."

With those parting words, Shirou spun around and turned to face the crowd, which gave a great, terrified gasp in unison. He ignored them and started walking with firm, purposeful strides. The students parted like the red sea, backing up and away from him with every step he took.

"Guiche!" the blond girl from earlier — Montmorency, that was her name — broke from the crowd and rushed past Shirou to attend to Guiche. "Guiche!"

"Montmorency…"

"Are you alright, Guiche? Here, let me heal that for you…"

"No, Montmorency, leave it be…"

Shirou allowed himself only a brief, grim smile.

So he had saved more than just Guiche himself with that little display.

And yet, despite Montmorency, who had rushed past him without even caring that she had almost bumped into him, the rest of the crowd seemed frightened and refused to come within five feet of him.

Suddenly, he wasn't just "the Zero's commoner" anymore. Now, they would respect him, but only because they also feared him. He had proven that he was perfectly capable of defeating any one of them and ending their lives, and so they would fear him like he was some sort of demon, even though he had done nothing but superficial harm to Guiche.

One by one, the students in the crowd peeled away as Shirou continued forward, parting before him as neatly as a sword stroke. Everyone stepped back and back and back as he went forward and forward and forward, until the last one, and then the last two, scuttled away to reveal Louise, who looked up at him with an expression that was half fragile hope and half awed understanding.

"You weren't lying," she said quietly.

"No," he confirmed for her.

"Everything you said yesterday…was the truth."

"Yes."

There was a long pause as a multitude of expressions played over her face — comprehension, regret, relief, hope, and finally, determination.

"Shirou," she started, using his name for the first time.

"Yes, Master?"

"Teach me."

"Teach you what?"

"_Everything_."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**Sorry to get your hopes up, folks, but this isn't a new chapter. I realize it's kind of late to be splitting chapter one in half (as best I could, anyway), but several people have said, "this thing's too long, you should've made it shorter," or "reading something this huge is a chore, I liked shorter chapters." And I agreed. It really was too long, so I cut it in half and made two chapters when I finished writing the third. I'm not expecting a bunch of reviews for this one - let's face it, most of you reviewers have already reviewed this content, anyway - but I hope the new guys make a showing.**

**Next chapter will include Shirou's stat page.**

**"With the right pair of breasts, **_**anyone**_** can take over the world." comes from Men in Black II, "Anyone could take over the place with the right set of mammary glands."**

**Okay. So, I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but I went back and rewrote a portion of this chapter — not a big part, just a small section of that scene in the classroom. It'd bothered me, even when I was writing it, that Shirou didn't even **_**try**_** to rescue Louise. So, after a while of scratching my head about it, I decided, okay, Shirou **_**is**_** fast enough to reach her before the explosion. This'll be the last time I rewrite anything in the story, I swear, with the exception of correcting grammar or spelling mistakes that I don't catch before posting.**

**Read, review, enjoy.**


	3. Forebodings

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter III: Forebodings  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

"Are you a mage?"

The moment they had sat down in the table in her room, just after the tea had been poured and Siesta, who had prepared it, had excused herself and left, that was the first question that Louise asked.

"Yes," Shirou answered simply. He took a sip of tea and paused to appreciate its tangy flavor. If he had to compare it, he would say it was rather like the Western teas Rin favored — a citrusy spice, punctuated by the sour-sweet flavor of lemon and sweetened by just a touch of sugar, mixed perfectly to give it the right amount of kick and taste.

Siesta was apparently a rather good cook herself, it seemed.

"But you're not a noble," Louise said. It was more of a statement than a question.

"No, I'm not," Shirou replied. He took another sip of tea — it really was quite good. "In my world, magic is not nearly so widespread as it is here. Mages are not nobles lording their magic over those without, but secretive scholars who spend their entire lives studying."

"Wait, wait, wait," Louise cut him off. "_Your_ world?"

"Yes, my world," Shirou explained calmly. "The moment I saw the two moons in the sky, it became obvious to me that this wasn't my reality."

He neglected to mention all of the other clues that had been slammed in his face before he'd even so much as glanced at those two moons, because really, there wasn't a point in explaining all of it. It was true enough, anyway; the presence of a second moon was the incontrovertible evidence that had dispelled even the remnants of doubt.

"But," her brow furrowed confusedly, "I don't understand."

Shirou paused a moment and considered it, taking another long sip of his tea to fill the silence. How did one explain True Magic to someone who had no idea such a thing existed?

Well, even he only knew so much. The First, Fourth, and Fifth were all complete mysteries to him — he'd had the good fortune to never have met the Blue — but Rin had told him horror stories of the Second and its practitioner, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, and Shirou himself had had personal experience with the Third during the Holy Grail War.

"Think of it…like a tapestry or a carpet," he decided on finally. "Each thread is a different world, a different universe, a different reality. Each thread is separate — it doesn't intersect or intertwine with any other. In this world — this thread — nobles with magic rule over commoners. In the world I come from — _my_ thread — commoners elect leaders to lead them, ignorant of magic, and use cleverness to do all the things magic can, while mages lock themselves in their homes and study magic as a way to reach the pinnacle of knowledge: Akasha, the Swirl of the Root."

"So yesterday, when you talked about mages and A…Akasha, right? That's what you meant."

"That's right."

Simplistic — very, very simplistic — but explaining technology and science and electricity, as well as the different forms of government, to a girl who had never experienced any of it, nor would have, being a schoolgirl, was well beyond Shirou's ability to teach, and far too tedious and longwinded besides.

And beyond that, how was he to explain technology to Louise when he only knew what he'd learned in high school, whether that was in classes or gleaned from using Structural Grasping on the objects he'd repaired? No, he knew a bit from all of the things he'd helped fix those many years ago, but as far as how it all worked, it might as well have been True Magic.

"So…our worlds are separate and different," Louise concluded. "But I don't understand. If they can't intersect or anything, then how did it get you here? And what does all of this have to do with me summoning you?"

"Because there are ways to cross over from one world to another," Shirou told her. "In my world, we call this sort of thing True Magic, or Sorcery. It's something virtually no one can do. I don't know if it was you, or if it was something in the summoning ritual, but when you summoned me, True Magic was performed to bring me here."

"And why is that important?"

"Because if there was something here that could take me from my world, then there must also be something that can send me back."

For a moment, Louise looked bewildered, then crestfallen and depressed, and then, before Shirou could comment on it, it was replaced by her usual expression.

"You want to leave?" she asked, with just the slightest quiver in her voice.

He gave her a soft smile. "You didn't think I'd want to stay forever, did you?"

She didn't answer. She looked away with a troubled expression on her face and chewed nervously at her lower lip.

"Master?"

"The summoning ritual," she began hesitantly, "binds master and familiar together. For life. It doesn't end unless one of them dies."

Shirou sat back, reeling.

"Oh," was all he could say.

Idiot, he scolded himself. This wasn't the Holy Grail War. He wasn't going to return to his own home two weeks from now, or fade away without his Master's support. He was stuck here.

To be fair, he already knew that. He'd already known that he would be here for an indeterminate amount of time. He already knew that he might have to stay with Louise for months or years before she no longer needed him. He'd even considered staying until she'd grown old and died.

But to have it said like that…

A ritual that bound two people together for life, even if it hadn't been intended for two humans, per say, was definitely important. If this ritual was sacred enough that the bond was intended to last until one or the other died, then…

Ouch.

He looked down at the runes that were inscribed onto the back of his hand — he hadn't noticed it during the duel itself, but afterwards, when he'd retrieved Balmung, the moment his fingers had touched the hilt, these very runes had glowed and filled his body with power. No, there was no way he could have noticed them during the fight, not when his entire concentration had been on Guiche and on holding enough of his power back not to kill the entire crowd.

But they had glowed when he touched Balmung, glowed so brightly that he could see it even through his glove, if only just, and had made him stronger and faster, his body lighter. It wasn't one of his natural abilities, so the only thing that he could relate it to was a Class Skill, like Saber's Magic Resistance or Archer's Independent Action.

And if it — whatever it was — was a Class Skill, then that meant he had a class, and the runes, whatever they said, were probably indicative of what that class was.

Hadn't Colbert remarked on how strange they were?

So if he had a class, that meant that there might actually be a Grail System behind this after all.

These mages didn't know how their summoning spell worked, right? They simply cast the spell and it worked, pulling "whatever familiar most suited the mage's power and affinity" from somewhere across time and space to the mage's side. It seemed that, with the exception of Shirou himself, they all came from somewhere sometime on this world. If the spell itself was relatively simple to cast and generally low cost for the caster, then there had to be something that did the heavy lifting, right? Magecraft was equivalent exchange, after all.

And what decided which familiar was most appropriate to a mage? If it was simply about power or magical affinity, that would be one thing, but a system that could account for the personality as well? There was no way the summoning spell on its own could do such a thing by itself, not unless these mages had access to a hell of a lot more Prana than normal.

Even more to the point, what assigned these runes and how did it determine which runes to assign to which familiar? Even if this world was stuck in some sort of Age of Gods era, the sort of complexity necessary to do that, to account for all the variables and custom-tailor each contract and each "class" to each specific mage and familiar pair…well, Shirou wasn't an expert on magical theory, but it sounded like something that would require more than just a single mage to accomplish.

So then, there had to be a system, something with the raw power and the necessary function to account for each mage's needs and personality.

Maybe that something was a Grail System.

Or maybe he was putting too much stock in his past experiences with summoning. After all, were not these mages capable of doing incredible things with the speed and effort of a Single Action?

Either way, these runes marked Shirou as Louise's familiar, the partner that was supposed to stand by her and protect her until the day she died. They marked him the same way the Grail's Command Spells had marked him as Saber's Master.

"Then I suppose I'll simply have to stay," Shirou said matter-of-factly.

The tentative joy that crossed Louise's face was nearly heart-wrenching. Could he really get her hopes up like that when he was planning on going home as soon as he had a method to do so?

Yes, he decided. He would teach her, he would raise her, so that when it was time for him to leave, she would no longer need him to be strong. For now, he would let her believe that he would stay until one of them died.

"So," Louise started again after a moment, "the way you destroyed Guiche's golems — did you use some sort of spell to make yourself that strong?"

"No."

"Then…some sort of mystical charm or something?"

"I'm afraid not."

Her brow furrowed. "Then…you really are that strong naturally?"

"Yes, I am," Shirou confirmed for her.

"But that's…!" she struggled for a moment for a word. "You said that you're just a human, right? How can you do something like that, then!"

Shirou paused and looked at her a moment, wondering if she would believe him if he told her. Rin had had difficulty with it, too, when she'd found out, but since she'd seen him go toe-to-toe with Berserker that one time, even if he'd collapsed immediately afterward, it'd been much easier for her to accept something so ludicrous.

"Tell me, Louise," he began softly, "how old to you think I am?"

"Um…" she scrutinized his face, frowning and no doubt wondering what the relevance was. He could see that she wanted to ask why it mattered, but she just played along instead. "Well, I'm seventeen, so I'd say…maybe ten years older than me? Twenty-seven or so."

"You'd be right," Shirou replied, watching the confusion play over her face before he added, "if you'd said that about thirty-eight years ago."

Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline and her mouth flapped open silently. From behind the door, there was a surprised gasp that Shirou took to mean Siesta had been eavesdropping, but it seemed that he was the only one who'd noticed it.

"In every way that matters, I'm human," Shirou explained. "However, as a result of something that happened in my youth, I gained…let's call it a burden of the body. Cut me, and I'll bleed red. Kill me, and I'll die. The only difference between me and any other person is that I don't age as swiftly and my abilities are magnitudes beyond normal."

He took a sip of his tea, drained the last of it, and set the empty cup back down.

"To put it simply," he concluded, "I have all the advantages of being a Heroic Spirit without being dead. I may not be quite as strong as some of the more powerful Heroic Spirits, but in summoning me, Louise, you called the most powerful familiar out of all your classmates."

She was quiet for a moment as all of the information sank in, then she drooped into her chair as a sort of cloud seemed to descend over her.

"I'm going to get old," she said miserably. "I'm going to get old and gray and fat, and my familiar won't age a day. By the time I'm a grandmother, my familiar will look like my grandson. What will people say? They'll think I have a lover half my age. My family's reputation would be ruined."

Shirou stopped a smile before it could become more than a twitch of his lips. "My Master worries too much."

Louise sighed and pulled herself back up into her seat, marshaling herself.

"You said that you're not a Servant or a Heroic Spirit," she started, "but if you were — a-a Servant, that is — what, um, what class would you be?"

A valid question, perhaps, if a bit of a roundabout way of asking him what his skillset was.

Shirou leaned back and gave it a bit of thought.

He could fit Saber, of course, and Archer, too, but beyond those obvious ones, he'd never really given it much consideration. Why should he? He didn't plan on dying and becoming a Heroic Spirit anytime soon, nor fighting in another Grail War, either, as either a Servant or a Master.

But he'd been summoned anyway, hadn't he?

How ironic.

"There are seven classes that I know of," he told her. "Saber, Servant of the Sword; Lancer, Servant of the Spear; Archer, Servant of the Bow; Rider, the Mounted Servant; Berserker, the Mad Servant; Caster, the Mage Servant; and Assassin, Servant of Stealth and Murder. Of those seven, I could comfortably fill Saber, Archer, and Caster, but in a stretch, Lancer. I'm afraid I've no aptitude for Berserker, Rider, or Assassin."

"Well, if you're a mage, of course you could fill the, um, Caster class, right?" she mumbled. "And Saber — um, you said that was a swordsman, right? But wait." Her brow furrowed. "You just said Archer, didn't you? But you only have a sword. An Archer would — Oh."

She glanced at an area next to his head. "That vault thing, that thing you did with the glowing light thingy that you pulled a sword from; you have a bow in there, don't you?"

"Among other things," he answered cryptically.

He watched for a few silent moments as she frowned again, and he imagined the wheels turning in her head as her eyes glazed over. She was thinking, thinking deeply, over the things he'd told her the day before and the information he'd given her now, and sitting there, scowling blankly at the table, she reminded him once more of Rin.

They really would have gotten along famously.

"Master," he started, startling her from her thoughts, "I apologize for interrupting you, but I must confess that my earlier estimation was false."

"Earlier estimation?"

"Yes," he explained. "Before, I wasn't sure if I had been summoned in a class, but when I returned my sword to my vault, I noticed a reaction from the runes on my hand."

He held up his left hand for her to see.

"It was nothing to do with my own natural abilities," he went on. "That means that it must be a skill related to my Servant class — or whatever it is I was made into when you summoned me."

"Oh." She waved it off disinterestedly. "Yes, that. All familiars have that kind of thing. The runes let a familiar do something it couldn't before in order to make it easier to connect with its Master — like a cat being able to talk."

"I see." He smiled a little. "And the runes on my hand, whatever they mean, have something to do with swords. How ironic."

"Ironic?" she asked.

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"

She was quiet for a moment and looked away from him, chewing on her bottom lip — the sign he had quickly associated with her being nervous or anxious about something. He waited patiently for the question that was coming — there was no point in trying to force it out of her; that would just get her to blow up at him.

"You've said before," she began quietly, "that I'm the most powerful mage on campus. What did you mean by that? I mean, I-I'm a failure. I can't do anything right — just about the only spell that's ever worked for me is the summoning. Everything else just ends in — in _explosions_."

Shirou let the question hang in the air for a moment and considered how to answer it. There were multiple things he could say, multiple explanations he could give, but at the end of the day, he and this girl would have to have a close relationship. They would have to trust each other, because without it, there was no way they could function as a team, as partners, and Shirou would have to search on his own for a way home.

And how did you build trust? By making something personal.

"When I was your age," he decided on, "I had absolutely zero talent as a mage."

Her head shot up and her eyes went wide as her mouth dropped open.

"Before my accident," he was _not_ going to explain his contract to this girl, "I was good at only one type of magic, and before _that_, I was so inept and pathetic that you would look like a prodigy by comparison."

"W-_what_?" Louise squeaked.

"I could only do one spell," he said, "two, if you want to be technical, and nothing else. I had neither the tutelage nor the talent to do anything else. My friend, Rin, who was nothing more than an acquaintance at that time, said that I was completely hopeless and that the two spells I knew were utterly useless. I had no useful ability at all, and I wouldn't have even been considered a third rate magus."

He leaned back a little and watched the emotions play across her face — confusion and surprise about his abilities (or lack thereof), followed by relief and a little bit of joy that he had been even worse than her, once upon a time.

"Then, some things happened," he continued, "and I discovered a talent for a specific type of magic, one that was related, in some ways, to the two spells I could already do, and shortly after that, I had my…_accident_, and a whole new avenue of magic opened up to me."

"I don't understand," she admitted, a little frustrated. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Because the reason I had no talent except for in that one branch of magic," Shirou explained, "was that my affinity was odd, nonstandard. In my world, you see, you can only use magic related to your elemental affinity. Nothing else will work for you. I couldn't use any of the standard elements because my affinity was so radically odd."

"How odd? What kind of affinity do you have?"

"Swords," he said solemnly.

Louise blinked and her mouth flapped open, then shut, once, twice, three times, before she found her voice.

"Swords?" she asked incredulously.

"Swords," Shirou confirmed. "The reason why I couldn't use the five elements or anything of that sort is because my body and my magic is specifically set on swords, to the point where every other sort of magic was completely impossible for me."

"And…and you're saying," she swallowed thickly. "You're saying…the reason I'm having trouble with magic…is that _I_ might have an unusual affinity, too?"

It was a possibility, but it was also strange. Hadn't she explained just the day before that becoming a stronger mage meant learning how to strengthen your magic by "adding elements?" By nature, that meant that she had to have a very unusual affinity for it to affect her spell-casting so drastically.

Like "explosions."

Of course, he wasn't going to tell her that bit, not if he wanted to keep her from blowing up at him.

"That depends," he hedged. "Have you tried all of the standard ones?"

Her cheeks flushed red and she straightened indignantly, scowling.

"Of course!" she said angrily. "I've tried fire, water, earth, and wind! I already told you that, didn't I? I can't do _any_ of it!"

Shirou hummed.

"But your teacher said there are five, didn't she?" he pointed out. "Today, in class."

She blanched. "Void?"

"Ether, Void. Either or. Both mean essentially the same thing where I come from."

Louise lit up like a Christmas tree and her face turned a very interesting shade of cherry red.

"D-don't be ridiculous!" she sputtered. "Saying something like that — like I could use the Void! That's blasphemous, familiar!"

Shirou arched an eyebrow. "Blasphemous?"

"The Void is the element of the Holy Founder, Brimir!" she told him furiously. "It's sacred! No one else can have it! Don't even joke about me having something like that!"

"I never said you did," he held his hands up in surrender. "But you can't know unless you've tried, Master."

She huffed and slumped over, arms crossed.

"I can. I don't," she declared moodily, as though it were an indisputable fact. "Just — just, something else, okay? I can't have to Void. What else could I have, then?"

He frowned, but let it drop. "A nonstandard affinity. There's really no way to know without testing it or using some complex ritual that I'm really not familiar with — but, ah, didn't you say that mages can use different elements? That should mean that affinity is just what you're best at."

"Not exactly," she shook her head. "Mages can use more than one element, yes, but it's much, much harder and more tiring to cast an elemental spell that's different from your affinity. Just because she can mix Earth-Earth-Fire doesn't mean Mrs. Chevreuse can use fire spells easily. She can still cast fire spells, but it's much more effective to use it to strengthen her earth spells."

"I see," Shirou hummed thoughtfully.

He really wasn't an expert on this stuff, not even the stuff from his home world. Rin had always been better — the meager things he _did_ know were things he had learned from Rin and her lectures in the first place. He only knew as much about the Grail as he did because he had specifically researched it.

"The familiar a mage summons corresponds to his or her affinity, right?" Shirou began slowly. "Like Miss Kirche and her salamander, a creature of fire to match her fire affinity."

"That's right," Louise nodded. "And that other girl, the one who poured wine on Guiche, Montmorency, she's a water mage and she summoned a frog."

Shirou allowed himself a small chuckle. "Naturally."

"And Guiche summoned a mole," Louise went on, "because he's an earth mage. Tabitha summoned a dragon, and, um, I _think_ she's a wind mage, but I'm not sure."

"Of course," Shirou agreed. "But no one else summoned a human, did they? If it were simple, I might just say that summoning a human would be summoning a mage with the same affinity, but considering my elemental alignment is nonstandard…"

He let it hang, hoping that she might jump in with a bit of information that he hadn't known before, but her thoughts seemed to head in an entirely different direction.

"What do swords have to do with explosions, anyway?" she murmured gloomily.

"You'd be surprised," Shirou told her. She blinked owlishly for a moment, then scowled, probably thinking that he was teasing her. "At any rate, Master, do you know if anyone has ever summoned a human before?"

"Not that I know of," she replied. "But if there's any record of something like that, it would probably be in the library."

"The library?" Shirou asked.

"The Tristain Academy of Magic's library," Louise clarified. She sat a little straighter and puffed out her chest a little. "It's one of the foremost libraries in Halkeginia and contains information about magic and history going as far back as the time of the great Founder, Brimir. It's almost as extensive as the library at the Oriz Magic Academy where Éléonore works."

She said it with great pride, as though it were a truly incredible accomplishment, and it probably was. Unfortunately, Shirou would simply have to take her word for it — since he had nothing to compare it to in this world, there was no way he could say whether it was any better or worse than any other library.

But this was a perfect opportunity. If this library was as extensive as Louise said it was, then it just might contain the very information Shirou was searching for about how he'd been brought there in the first place.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The library was located in the Academy's centermost tower, the same tower that contained the Alviss Dining Hall that Louise had showed him to earlier in the day, and as she led him into the library proper, Shirou had the not unreasonable thought that the reason why the centermost tower was the tallest in the entire Academy was because it contained the library.

It was a thought that solidified into a certainty when, curious about exactly how tall the humongous bookshelves were, he reached out and used Structural Grasping on one.

Thirty meters. In Western Imperial, about ninety-eight-and-a-half feet. To put that kind of number in better perspective, the average Gundam from those mecha TV shows that were so popular in Japan when he'd been a teenager was only sixty feet tall. In other words, each of these bookshelves was taller than a Gundam.

Upon that realization, the first thing out of Shirou's mouth was, "This is an accident waiting to happen."

"Only for a commoner," Louise corrected with a little disdain, and then her shoulders drooped and her head dropped and she added, miserably, "or…or a mage who can't cast Levitation."

"You needn't concern yourself, Master," Shirou told her. "With luck, perhaps I'll find something in this library that will clarify the nature of your affinity and why it was you summoned me."

"Right," she said, "right. Um, how long — that is, how much time are you planning on spending down here, Shirou?"

Shirou hummed. "I thought I would stay here while you're in class and see if I can't find anything."

"While I'm in class?" she repeated. "Wait, you don't mean every day I'm in class for the next _year_, do you?"

Considering the size of the library, he wasn't ruling that idea out.

"If necessary," Shirou hedged. "As long as you have no need of me for something important, I figured I'd look through here until I found something."

Louise slumped and let out a soft groan.

"A year, he says," she mumbled miserably. "If necessary, he says. Am I really going to have to wait that long before I find out why I can't do magic properly?"

Shirou couldn't stop the slight quirk of his lips.

"Have faith in your Servant, Master," he said a little sardonically. "If this situation is as rare as you say, then even in this library, finding the right book should not take nearly so long."

After all, such a rare situation would definitely stand out, right? Finding a book on that sort of thing should be easy, because it would be the sort of thing that really stood out. It shouldn't take more than a few days.

A week later, however, Shirou was starting to think — to his dismay — that his original estimate might have been more accurate than he'd really thought it would be.

Searching was made somewhat easier by the fact that whatever had summoned him had provided enough of a linguistic understanding for him to actually read the books in the library, but being able to read them didn't mean that he would magically find the right one. Moreover, when Louise had said that the library contained the entire history of the country since the time of the Founder, this Brimir figure, she hadn't explained exactly _how long ago_ that meant.

If it was perfectly analogous to Christianity, or even any other religion in his home world, it would have been rather young — most religions didn't last more than a few thousand years before a newer, stronger, more logical belief came and took the old one's place. The Church of the Founder, however, was _old_ — _older_ than the story of Gilgamesh, actually, and from what he'd gathered based upon the books he'd read or skimmed through, Brimir's tale was a little over six_ thousand_ years old.

Six thousand years of magical development and history was a lot to go through.

Further complicating the issue was that a lot of the older stuff skimmed over most of the details, and even worse, contained such an obvious religious slant that it was hard to determine which parts were fact and which parts were biased religious propaganda. On top of all of that, he'd found nothing that talked about human familiars.

When he'd looked through the books on magic, he'd had similar luck — there was some mention about Brimir, "in his infinite wisdom," creating the magic system that all mages had followed since and still followed now, but as best Shirou understood, that was just inscribing the Magical Foundation onto the world. He didn't know much about that sort of thing, and the little he did know came from research he himself had done on Reality Marbles when he had spent that short stint at Clocktower with Rin.

Other than that and the apparent uniqueness of Brimir's Void magic, there was nothing in the library about unusual affinities or anything that described Louise's problem. There was nothing that described any sort of cause for the difficulty she had with performing magic, nor any solution.

No handy guide that said, "This is what you're doing wrong," and "this is how you do it right."

Just about the only thing useful he'd discovered was that the system they used to summon familiars, the "Springtime Familiar Summoning," was a sacred rite that had also been invented by the Founder — or so the book detailing it had claimed, but there was enough religious slant that Shirou thought it might just be easier to say, "it was made around that time."

It didn't give any real details about the system itself, just that it sought out a mage's most appropriate familiar, selected specifically to suit the mage's needs, affinity, and personality, and pulled it across time and space to bring familiar and mage together.

Of course, it didn't really offer any detail about how this ritual accomplished what it did, so Shirou was still at square one, but it did mean that he had more direction than he had originally.

Shirou spent most of the week combing through the library section by section, building a mental map of what subjects were where, and he got quite a few stares from the students who came into the library for their own research — mostly, it was a bit of awe, a bit of fear, and a healthy dose of nervousness, and he did his best to ignore them.

Gossip traveled faster than light, so it was only natural that the entire student body had heard about his fight with Guiche within a day of its occurrence. Sometimes, it was distracting, the stares and the whispers, but it was usually pretty easy to tune out and ignore. Those sorts of distractions were the easy ones.

"Go away, Flame."

But one determined salamander was proving to be a hard one.

Three days after he'd started his research, Flame had started waddling in at odd hours and trying to drag him away. He had little trouble guessing where — Kirche hadn't exactly been subtle about her interest that first morning — but Shirou had no intention of dating or bedding a girl fifty years his junior, so he kept a rolled up newspaper (filched from one of the teachers) that he used to swat Flame on the nose.

For the most part, it worked.

A burst of fire leapt through the air and set the newspaper ablaze before Shirou could bring it down on Flame's snout, and Shirou dropped it with a grimace.

And then, there were days when Flame decided not to play along and just torched Shirou's weapon before he could put it to any use.

"Trace, on."

Another rolled up newspaper appeared in Shirou's hand as the remnants of the first faded into motes of light, and Shirou brought it down of Flame's nose with a meaty smack.

Fortunately, Shirou was more than capable of replacing his weapon of choice when it was destroyed.

Flame let out a little whine, then turned around and waddled away, sulking and defeated. No doubt, it was disappointed to have failed its — his — master, but Shirou didn't particularly feel like indulging the carnal fantasies of a little girl young enough to be his granddaughter. He turned back to his book, a thick tome that he'd taken from what he'd dubbed the "history" section of the library.

It went into more detail than the other books and talked about the history of the summoning rite, about how, before the Founder, Brimir, had revolutionized the system, inscribing the familiar runes had been done by hand rather than automatically.

Unfortunately, it didn't really give him much more than that. There was no talk about how the summoning system had been set up, either before or after Brimir had revolutionized it, and nothing about how it worked or what its selection criteria were. It had a list, too, of relatively common familiars throughout the ages (dragons, manticores, griffins, and other things that Shirou really thought were too dangerous to be familiars), but there was nothing on it about human familiars at all.

Another dead end.

Shirou snapped the book closed with a sigh and leaned back in his chair.

He'd gone through all of the most obvious books in each of the sections that he thought might contain the information he wanted, but there was nothing. All of the information was too general or too biased, so he hadn't yet found anything that was worth finding, save those few bits and pieces that might be useful later on.

There was one section, however, that he hadn't been through, yet.

It was locked off and separated from the rest of the library, guarded by a large, brassy-looking gate that had been locked shut. "Fenrir Library" had been written on a plaque across the bars, and from the fact that it was, actually, locked, Shirou understood it to be sort of a restricted section, one that only teachers could access whenever they liked. It probably contained more information, more detailed information, than the main library, and it was probably locked off because it contained information or spells that the teachers didn't want the students perusing.

If there was anything in the library that could answer the questions he needed answered, he had little doubt that it was located in that section.

But he hadn't tried to enter it yet.

No, of course not. Even though the gate looked flimsy enough and the lock even flimsier, there was no doubt in his mind that there was some enchantment on it that prevented any students from using an unlocking spell to get inside. There was probably some sort of trick, some sort of specialized spell that would disarm whatever traps protected the gate, and it was probably something only the teachers knew about.

Perfect. It just couldn't get any more perfect, could it?

He was sure he could just bust it down — B+ Strength was like that — but he was equally sure that there was some sort of alarm that would go off if he did, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause trouble for Louise, _especially_ if he wasn't going to get a chance to find anything either way.

Shirou sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

How he so very dearly wished Rin was there. _She_ probably could've gotten into that section within two minutes of observing what kind of spell kept it locked, _without_ setting off whatever alarm or ward was placed on the door. Then, she would've berated him for not being able to do it himself.

"Really, Shirou, it wasn't that difficult," he could imagine her saying. "Even _you_ should've been able to handle _that_ much."

"Sorry, Rin," he would reply, "but we can't all be geniuses like you."

"Genius has nothing to do with it," she'd shoot back. "It was a ridiculously simply trip lock with a reactionary ward that only responded to the correct unlocking spell. It wasn't that hard!"

"If you say so."

"Hey! What's _that_ supposed to mean?!"

"Nothing, nothing. I'm just remembering why it was they made you a Department Head. You really are the brightest of our generation, Rin. Even better than Luvia."

"That's right! And don't you forget it!"

"Never," he whispered.

"Mister Shirou?" a familiar voice asked.

Instantly, the imaginary Rin he'd been talking to vanished and Shirou was jolted suddenly back into the real world, where Siesta was standing a little nervously next to him with an odd look on her face.

She'd seemed a little more distant once she'd found out that he was so much older than he looked, but Shirou hadn't paid it much mind. Her reaction was rather normal, he figured — not everyone could be as easygoing as Louise and Rin had been upon finding out how much more slowly he aged.

"Siesta," Shirou said politely. "Was there something you needed?"

"Um," she started, "Miss Vallière asked that I come and get you for dinner."

"Of course, Siesta," Shirou made sure to give her a smile. "I'll be along in a moment, just as soon as I return these books."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"I must confess, Master, that I _still _don't understand why we're doing this."

It was Void's Day, according to Louise, which Shirou took to be this world's equivalent to Sunday. There were no classes, and shortly after they'd eaten breakfast, Louise had declared her intention to take him into town to go shopping.

It was after a three hour ride on horseback (and Shirou very much wished he had stored something more comfortable, like a Mercedes or a motorcycle, inside of his vault) that they reached the town — and Louise had yet to tell him its name — and its white, cobblestone streets. After leaving their horses at the town gate, Louise led him down the bustling streets, weaving with obvious ease through the people out and about.

The buildings were made of brick and the roads rather narrow; looking around, at the old-fashioned windows and doors, at the stands set up along the edges of the roadways, selling meats and fruits, at the sort of uniforms and clothing worn, Shirou felt as though he were walking through nineteenth or eighteenth century London, or perhaps even earlier.

"I already told you, didn't I? I'm going to buy you a sword."

And she had, in fact, already told him that she intended to buy a sword for him. It was a nice gesture, to be sure, but still…

"And I've already said that it's not necessary. I already have a great many swords, Master."

"I know," she said, undeterred. "You have that one, you called it a Last Phantom or something, and that other one you used against Guiche — Valdung or something — and probably a whole lot more in your vault thing. But still!"

"Balmung, Master, and a Last Phantasm," Shirou corrected, "and yes, many more besides that. Which is why you don't need to buy another one for me."

"And I'm sure that all of those swords are really nice, Shirou," she said, "especially if they're all like that Malbung —"

"Balmung."

"— Right, Balmung. Especially if they're all like that Balmung. But a mage takes care of her familiar!" Louise declared importantly. "That's why I'm going to buy you a sword!"

Shirou sighed.

"It's a waste of money," he tried to tell her. "I already have more than enough swords to make do, so there's no reason to spend your allowance on something like this. You do realize that, don't you?"

"S-so?" a faint blush colored her cheeks. "I refuse to be outdone by anyone!"

She stomped her foot imperiously, but to Shirou, she just wound up looking so very cute. "I'm a Vallière! I can't be upstaged by anyone else! I don't care who gave you those other swords, Shirou —"

"Mostly, I collected them by myself," he muttered.

"— but I'm going to buy you an even better sword!" she promised. "And then you'll use that sword, and whenever anyone sees it, they'll ask you where you got it, and you can tell them that your wonderful, kind, generous master bought it for you!"

_Right_, he thought sarcastically, _because a small shop in this town is going to have Noble Phantasms for sale._

"Somehow, Master," he said instead, "I don't think this shop is going to have a sword that meets my usual standards."

She stumbled a little, and Shirou realized that she probably hadn't given that any thought when making her plans.

"W-well," she stuttered, "we won't know until we get there, will we?"

"As you say, Master," he conceded, unconvinced.

She led him past several other shops and stands, guiding him through the rest of the crowd to a turn into an even narrower street, littered with garbage and trash and all sorts of refuse. Shirou's nose wrinkled on reflex — he'd been to some third world countries before, but you never really got used to the stench of sewage, rotting food, and unwashed bodies, even if you learned to ignore it when there were more important things to worry about.

She led him further through a maze of lefts and rights and straightaways, muttering to herself every now and then and glancing each way at each intersection.

"It should be near Peyman's Potion Shop," she mumbled to herself. "I remember it being somewhere around here…"

Her eyes caught something, and Shirou watched as her face lit up. "Aha!"

He followed her gaze to a shop with a bronze sign that dangled a second, sword-shaped sign.

"Found it!" Louise declared.

She marched to the door and threw it open, and Shirou followed her up the stone steps and inside.

Immediately, the bright sunlight that bathed the streets disappeared and Shirou was plunged into a dark little shop lit only by a handful of gas lamps. It bore a disturbing resemblance to some of those dingy bars that always showed up in American gangster movies, and the similarities were a little uncomfortable — someone always _died_ in those dingy little bars.

Manning the shop was a fifty-something-year-old man, a lit pipe — the old fashioned kind that used to be popular in the Western world in the Industrial Era — hanging from his lips. He eyed Louise suspiciously as she and Shirou entered, until, that is, he saw something that evidently pleased him greatly.

The old man pulled his pipe from his mouth and flung out his arms invitingly.

"My lady!" he welcomed her. "My good, noble lady! Come, come. All of my wares here are real and reasonably priced!"

"Thank you," Louise said with a polite sort of imperiousness. "I've come here to buy a sword."

"A sword?" the shopkeeper parroted. "If you don't mind me saying so, milady, that's quite strange. A noble buying a sword — quite strange, indeed."

"Oh?" Louise arched one delicate eyebrow and Shirou stifled a smile — either she had been on the receiving end of it quite often, or she had been practicing in the mirror for years. "How so?"

"Well…priests wave sanctified staves, soldiers wave swords, and nobles wave wands. Isn't that how it usually goes?"

"Oh, I'm not the one using it," Louise said with a wave of her hand. Her tone was the perfect blend of cool, airy condescension and disinterest — again, Shirou got the feeling she had probably either seen it often enough or had practiced it to perfection. "It's a gift for my Servant" — Shirou felt his own eyebrow raise — "so he'll be the one picking it out."

"Ah, your servant, eh?" the shopkeeper grinned and looked over at Shirou. "That would be you, then, would it, good sir?"

"It would," Shirou said with a short, neutral nod.

"I'm afraid I'm not very knowledgeable about swords," Louise cut back in, "so please show my anything that is reasonable."

"Of course, of course," the shopkeeper said it politely enough, and he even bowed before leaving to pick out a sword, but Shirou saw something in his eye that didn't seem as nice and congenial as his tone suggested.

The shopkeeper returned shortly with a longsword about a meter in length, decorated exquisitely and designed very obviously for a single-handed grip style — the hilt was too short for anything else. The blade shone like silver and gleamed with a fine, mirror finish, and the hilt looked crafted from gold. A large, egg-shaped ruby was embedded in the bottom of the pommel and two more were fitted into either end of the cross-guard. Very neatly patterned scrollwork was etched into the ricasso and all over the guard and grip and wound like vines around the quillons.

It was, all in all, a very nice piece of work.

"It seems as though a lot of nobles are letting their servants and vassals carry swords nowadays. They're all worried about that thief that's been going around stealing treasures and artifacts from nobles, that Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt person," the shopkeeper explained. "The last time one of them came to me for a sword, this was the kind they picked."

"This one?"

"Yes, that's right. This is a sword made by the famous Germanian Alchemist, Lord Shupei. It's got spells and incantations on it that let it cut through ordinary metal like butter! You can't get this cheaper anywhere else."

Louise grimaced. "How much?"

"As I said, this is a high quality item," the shopkeeper said. "Normally, it'd be much, much more expensive. However, I'd be willing to sell this to you for three thousand new gold."

"What?!" Louise sputtered. "You could buy a whole estate with that kind of money!"

"A sword of this quality is worth more than a castle, milady," the shopkeeper insisted. "Even an estate is less expensive than something like this."

Louise frowned miserably and seemed to think about it for a moment, then turned, with obvious reluctance, to look at Shirou. "Shirou?" she asked, as though begging him to turn it down and fearing that he might not.

Shirou smirked and held out his hand. "May I?"

"Of course," the shopkeeper said politely. He handed Shirou the sword, hilt first. "See for yourself the quality of this priceless sword."

Shirou took the sword and stepped back, then pretended to give it a few test swings for good measure. In reality, of course, he didn't need to — he'd already known exactly how good this sword was the moment he'd laid eyes on it.

"It's a very nice sword," he said after a long moment of silence. Louise's face fell and the shopkeeper beamed. "It would make quite the display piece. But I would never take it into battle."

The shopkeepers smile dropped (Shirou could swear he heard the man's hopes and dreams crashing to pieces) and Louise looked at him, halfway between relieved and confused.

"The scrollwork is exquisite and detailed," Shirou explained, both for Louise's benefit and for the shopkeeper, "but it makes the ricasso inordinately long and removes the possibility of a fuller to make the sword lighter."

He ran his finger down the broad side of the blade to illustrate his point.

"Further," he went on, "the ricasso itself reduces the functional edge of the blade to half of what it should be, which decreases its value as a weapon. The tip is weighted and the foible is heavier than the forte — that ruins the balance and makes fighting with it awkward and difficult."

The two of them were watching him, riveted, without blinking, and Shirou flipped his grip to show them the hilt.

"The guard is heavier than it should be because it has to support the jewels in either end," he continued, "and the pommel is loose because it attaches awkwardly to the rest of the hilt. The grip is too small to balance the weight of the weapon, which is further ruined by the shorter, narrower tang. On top of all the other problems, this sword would probably snap after a week or two of serious use."

He handed the sword back to the shopkeeper, who took it dumbly.

"Like I said," Shirou concluded, "it's a good display piece, but I would never take it into a battle."

There was a moment of stunned silence as Louise and the shopkeeper both stared at him, dumbfounded, mouths hanging open slightly.

"Bwahahaha! He got you there, you old coot!"

And then, a deep, masculine voice echoed from nowhere to interrupt it.

The shopkeeper groaned and dropped his head into his hands, and Shirou looked out across the shop to try and find the owner, absently cataloguing every weapon he saw along the way, but there was no one there except more swords, spears, and the like. Nothing but ordinary, if magical —

His brain stopped. The entire world came to a halt. Shirou's eyes alighted onto a sword, one sword, one very specific sword, and Unlimited Blade Works reached out, analyzed it, sympathized with its existence, recorded the experience of its growth, matched its craftsmanship, excelled the manufacturing process, duplicated the component materials, reproduced the accumulated age…and stopped.

Stopped, not because the sword was an alien existence, a crystallized prayer crafted by the planet; stopped, not because it had been forged from something as ridiculous as a fallen star; stopped, not because the sword was made from something that was beyond Shirou's ability to comprehend, but stopped, because the sword had something that Shirou could not replicate anyway.

"Seems like this guy knows what he's doing," the sword cackled. "You're not going to fool him with a pretty show piece like that!"

Sentience.

No, some swords did have sentience, at least enough so to choose a wielder that suited them. That was what such swords as Gram and Caliburn had — a limited sentience that allowed them each to choose the most appropriate wielder, the king.

No, what this sword had wasn't _sentience_, but _sapience_. A _soul_.

"Shirou," Louise asked quietly, "I'm not hallucinating, am I? That sword actually just talked, didn't it?"

"Indeed, it did, Master," Shirou confirmed.

"Oi!" the sword jiggled in place as the cross-guard and quillons wiggled like a mouth. "What's the matter, kiddo? Never seen a talking sword before?"

"Can't say that I have," Shirou said a little faintly. Every instinct in him was screaming that this was a once in a lifetime chance and he _shouldn't _pass it up.

"Derf!" the shopkeeper shouted. "Shut up, Derf! I have _customers_ to take care of!"

"Looks more to me like the customer is taking care of you!" the sword shot back. The quillons jiggled as it laughed again.

"This sword…it's sentient?" Louise asked the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper grunted. "Aye, it's sentient, all right. It's a magical, talking sword. I wonder what sort of mage could make a sword talk like that…but he's got a rotten tongue, he does, always mouthing off to my customers. Hey, Derf! Keep it up, and I'll ask this noble lady here to melt you down for scrap!"

"Someone like her? Melt _me_ down?" the sword chortled. "She's a thousand years too young to do something like that!"

A growl, so tiny and soft that Shirou almost missed it, rumbled up Louise's throat.

"Fine!" the shopkeeper snarled. "Then _I'll_ do it!"

"That's even worse!" the sword cackled gleefully. "You're _two_ thousand years too young to even _try_!"

"It's fine," Shirou cut in, trying to curtail the argument. "This sword will do."

The shopkeeper grunted. "You sure about that, sonny? It's not that I won't be glad to see him go, but if you take him, I ain't acceptin' him back."

"Shirou," Louise looked a little pained, "there _must_ be a better sword in here."

"No, Master," Shirou told her with a little smirk, "there really isn't."

"Oi, oi," the sword chimed in. "Who said I wanted to go with you, anyhow?"

"Shirou," Louise asked reluctantly, "are you sure?"

"Positive, Master."

She sighed. "Very well." She turned to the shopkeeper. "How much?"

The shopkeeper grunted. "One hundred. Good riddance to it, so I'm giving it to you for cheap."

"Hey! I'm worth _way_ more than a measly one hundred!"

"Deal," Louise declared. She reached into her wallet and handed over a pile of gold coins, which the shopkeeper counted carefully before nodding and giving her a big, bright grin.

"Pleasure doing business with you, milady." He sheathed the sword and handed it over to Shirou, who took it with a quiet "thanks."

"If it gets noisy, just shove it back in the scabbard and it'll shut up," the shopkeeper advised.

The sword slid an inch or two from the sheath of its own volition, quillons wiggling. "Oi! Treat me with some respect, you old coot! I'm Derflinger, after all!"

Shirou slid Derflinger, as it called itself, back into its sheath and gave the shopkeeper a smile. "Thank you for your time."

As he followed Louise out of the shop, the shopkeeper called after them, "Thanks for the business! Come back anytime!"

The door shut behind them and the bright sunlight that had been absent while they were inside beamed down at them as though welcoming them back. Shirou lifted a hand to shield his eyes and looked up at the sky — by his estimate, it was about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, _maybe_ as late as four.

"I still don't see what's so special about that sword," Louise murmured. Shirou let his hand drop and fell into step behind her as she started back to the main road.

"I have seen many swords in my time, Master," Shirou explained, "indeed, many magical swords as well, but never one that talks. By that alone, it's worth more than the rest of the swords in that shop combined."

Derflinger popped out of its sheath again. "Hmph. Glad to see someone appreciates me!"

"But it's a dirty, rusted old piece of junk," Louise protested. "Even if it talks, wouldn't a cleaner, sharper sword have been a better choice?"

"You needn't worry, Master," Shirou assured her. "After all, my affinity is swords. It would be child's play for me to return this rusty sword to its former glory."

"Hoho," Derflinger crowed. "Looks like my partner this time around is much more competent than usual. I knew I made the right choice by picking you!"

"_He_ picked _you_, you dumb sword," Louise mumbled.

"Semantics!" Derflinger waved it off with a wiggle of one quillon.

"But there is something that concerns me, Master, that I'd like to address with you," Shirou changed the subject.

"Oh? What's that?"

"Back there, Louise," Shirou said solemnly, "you called me your Servant."

"Ah," she flushed and glanced over at him, then turned away and refused to look at him.

"It isn't that I think you made a mistake," he assured her, "nor that it's wrong to refer to me as such, despite the differences between what brought me here and the magic that I explained to you. But I would have you tell me why, Master, you would refer to me like that."

Louise grew steadily redder with each word, and there was a short moment of silence where he watched her marshal herself and threw back her shoulders confidently.

"Well," she began, sounding confident and in control, even with her cheeks stained red, "I decided that, since you know more about the-the human familiar thing, I would use your terminology. It…It didn't seem proper to keep calling you a familiar when you're not a regular familiar. And besides, the spell _is_ called _Summon Servant_, after all."

"I see," Shirou allowed himself a small smile. "Yes, Master, I don't think I could argue with that logic."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

After stopping at an inn for a short but filling lunch, Louise and Shirou returned to their horses and traveled back to the Academy (and Shirou found himself wishing, once again, that he had a more comfortable ride stashed in his vault). Another three hours later, having returned the horses they had been loaned by the campus, they started together for the tower that Louise called home. The moons had risen into the night sky.

"Ugh," Louise moaned as they walked, "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since lunch."

Her stomach let out a rumble as though to support her claim, and Shirou admitted that he himself was rather hungry as well.

How was it you could work up an appetite just by riding a horse?

"If you would like, Master," Shirou offered, "I could see if Siesta would be willing to put together a plate to bring to your room."

Louise groaned.

"No thanks," she said. "I just want to crawl into bed."

She yawned. "Where did the day go? It seemed like we were just leaving not that long ago."

"Time is like that, Master," Shirou said with a wry chuckle. "When you let your guard down, years can pass before you realize it."

She groaned again.

"No wisdom right now, Shirou," she told him, feet dragging, "I'm too tired for it."

"As you say, Master."

He stepped forward, looped one hand under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and lifted her up into his arms, ignoring her surprised, indignant squawk.

"Shirou!" she squealed. "What are you doing?! Put me down, put me down!"

"If you're too tired to accept wisdom, Master, then, you're certainly too tired to walk back to your room on your own."

"Put me down, Shirou! I'm a noble! This isn't dignified!"

"In combat, dignity is the first casualty, Master."

"This isn't a battle, Shirou! We're not fighting anything! Put me down! Put me _down_!"

"Indeed, we are, Master. When not in battle, one must find sleep wherever they can. Fatigue is the enemy."

"I don't care, Shirou! Put me down! I refuse to be carried like some helpless peasant when I'm perfectly capable of walking myself!"

Shirou chuckled. "It's the job of the Servant to protect his Master. However, since it seems that there are no other Servants for me to fight, hunger, fatigue, and ignorance are the enemies. Therefore, it is the duty of this Servant to protect you from each."

For a moment, Louise said nothing.

"Hunger, fatigue, and ignorance, huh?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, Master, exactly that."

There was another moment of silence, so much longer than before that Shirou thought perhaps she had fallen asleep in his arms. When he glanced down at her, however, she was wide awake and staring at something in the distance, gaze unfocused, lost in thought.

"We sure have a lot of enemies, don't we?" she asked.

Shirou laughed. He couldn't help it — the memory of that very line, spoken to his own Saber so many years ago and repeated now, struck something inside of him that he hadn't felt in a long time. So he laughed a deep belly laugh that rumbled up his chest and broke free from his mouth.

"Indeed," he said between laughs, "we are besieged from all sides."

Louise sighed.

"Fine," she conceded tiredly. "Take me back to my room —"

But she didn't get to finish, because Shirou flung himself backwards, Louise in his arms, fifty feet, just in time to avoid the large foot made of rock that slammed down where he'd just been standing.

"Sh-Shirou!" Louise yelled. "What is _that_?!"

"It appears to be a large golem, Master," Shirou replied solemnly.

The large rock foot was attached to a leg, and the leg to a torso, and the torso to another leg, two arms, and a head. The creature that had nearly stomped them into paste was a tall creature made of rock and dirt, a monstrosity riddled with moss and grass and splotches of green. It was as though someone had reached into the earth and molded what had been gouged out into a rough facsimile of a man, only sixty feet tall.

"Th-that's," Louise stuttered, "got to be at _least_ Triangle-level magic!"

Atop the golem's shoulder stood a cloaked figure, no doubt the caster, who pointed at the center tower's wall, and the golem's right fist gleamed, shiny and metallic, as it became steel instead of rock and punched the tower. The ground rumbled with the force of the blow, and chunks of stone went flying.

The golem had punched a hole in the wall.

The cloaked figure let out a cackle that Shirou could hear even without reinforcing his ears and ran down the golem's arm and in through the hole in the castle wall. A moment later, the figure returned, lugging a long staff that it seemed he could barely carry up along the golem's arm after burning a message onto the castle wall.

"_I got your Staff of Destruction — Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt."_

Shirou's eyes narrowed.

"Ruyi Jingu Bang."

Louise looked at him. "What?"

"The staff of the Monkey King," Shirou explained. "A Noble Phantasm that could grow or shrink to any size, could make any fighter a master martial artist, and was so heavy that only the Monkey King himself could lift it like a normal staff. The question is, _why was it in the Academy_?"

"The Academy has a vault," Louise told him matter-of-factly. "It's protected against all kinds of magic and safeguards a number of Tristain's ancient magical artifacts."

Shirou couldn't stop himself from snorting. "You keep some of your country's most valuable artifacts in your _school_?"

"It's one of the safest places in the country!" Louise protested indignantly.

"Nonetheless, Master, this is a fight you cannot win," Shirou handed her Derflinger. "Please, stay back."

"What —? Shirou!"

"Oi! Partner! Why are you leaving _me_ behind?!"

He kicked off the ground, unsheathing Escalvatine in a flash of gold as the thief — Fouquet, apparently — dragged himself up to his golem's shoulder with the Staff of Destruction (Ruyi Jingu Bang) trailing behind. The golem rumbled into motion again as Shirou cleared the fifty foot distance in a flash, his golden sword gleaming as he cleaved clear through the golem's leg.

"WHAT?!"

Fouquet, standing on its shoulder, wavered and let out a panicked shriek as the golem tried to step forward and stumbled without its right foot. Shirou moved for the follow up blow as the golem fell to one knee and flung out its hands in a surprisingly human motion to stop its fall.

A flash came from the golem's shoulder and bullets of sharpened rock the size of Shirou's arm sped towards him. Shirou aborted his attack and leapt out of the way — the rocks crashed to the ground and shattered like glass.

A mage — an earth mage — of the Triangle class, which was apparently this world's equivalent to a first rate magus. Since Square was considered the highest, and would thereby be the rarest, those would most probably be the equivalent of someone like Rin or Barthomeloi Lorelei — the geniuses who were head and shoulders above even the first raters.

Of course, that was just general skill level. Since this world was in a Pseudo Age of Gods era, they could do incredibly high ranked magic with ridiculous ease, hence the golem in front of him. Something on that level was about the same as a Grand Ritual, an intensely draining piece of magic that should have required an entire group of magi.

He had just proven, however, that it wasn't sturdy enough to withstand B+ Strength. It seemed that what this world had in versatility, it lacked in strength.

Shirou burst into motion again, weaving around the spells Fouquet was flinging at him as he rushed towards the golem a second time.

The golem hadn't broken apart from the first attack when Shirou had severed its right foot, nor had it lost any coherency when it had been forced into a kneel that had shaken ground. For all that it was fragile enough to that he could hack it to pieces, it was also sturdy enough that he would literally have to hack it to pieces to destroy it.

The right hand was severed as Shirou rushed past it, carving through the wrist with Escalvatine as though a knife through butter. The golem destabilized and teetered sideways as the severed wrist slid away from the dismembered hand and struck the ground with another thud that sent quivers across the courtyard.

"Why, you!" Fouquet screamed, sounding surprisingly feminine.

Shirou said nothing, merely continued on his path and carved through the left leg just above what counted as the golem's knee. The golem leaned even farther to the side, falling closer and closer to the already-damaged wall that it had punched through just minutes ago. Fouquet was wobbling, trying desperately to gain purchase on her crumbling golem and clutching desperately at the Staff of Destruction — Ruyi Jingu Bang — with one hand as the other scrambled wildly for a grip.

This was his chance.

Shirou leapt upwards as the golem tilted over and ran up its back, aiming to defeat Fouquet once and for all with one blow. He raised his sword, ready to cleave apart the shoulder that Fouquet was standing upon — take the footholds out from underneath her feet, force her to the ground, and while she was stunned, disarm her —

But a sudden burst of magical energy from Louise, still halfway across the courtyard, sent all of his instincts tingling, and he flung himself up and into the air.

"Fireball!" Louise's voice called.

There was a moment's pause, so minute that an ordinary human would only have had time to blink, and then the golem's head exploded with such force that Fouquet, still unstable from the golem's stumbling, was flung from her golem's shoulder and tumbled to the ground as her creation slammed sideways into the tower.

Shirou landed halfway between Fouquet, who was trying to pull herself to her feet, and Louise. He glanced back for an instant at his Master — her face was flushed from a combination of exertion and, judging by the grin pulling at her lips, success. Derflinger sat on the ground, completely silent, and her wand was raised in the air, still pointing at where the golem's head had once been.

Good for her.

Even if that hadn't exactly been a fireball.

He turned back around and started walking towards Fouquet, who was scrambling and trying to stand as she wheezed for breath. The air must've been knocked out of her lungs from the fall, but to survive a twenty-foot drop relatively unharmed, she must've been wearing some kind of body armor.

"Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt," he called out as he walked. The hooded face, no doubt disguised by some sort of spell woven into the cowl, looked up at him. Beneath the cloak, the body shape gave away what Shirou had already determined. "Yes, the shopkeeper mentioned you earlier today. You're the thief who has Tristain's nobility running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

"S-stay back!" Fouquet wheezed, brandishing her wand. "D-don't come any c-closer!"

"I have no love for this country and its nobility," he told her firmly. "For all that it matters to me, rob them blind. My quarrel with you doesn't begin until tonight, when you decided to endanger not only my Master's life, but the lives of every person on this campus for no other reason than your own selfish gain."

"I-I'm not afraid t-to kill you!" Fouquet rasped her warning. She waggled her wand threateningly. "I'm w-warning you!"

Shirou glared at her darkly.

"Before you even recite a single word," he promised grimly, "I will have snapped it clean in half —"

A deafening BANG cleaved through the air, and it was the only warning Shirou had — he leapt backwards and landed beside his Master, and no sooner had he vacated his spot than did the ground he'd been standing on explode, gouging a crater ten feet wide and six deep. Bits of dirt and grass flew every which way, scattering all over the place.

BANG, BANG — two more sounded, and this time, Shirou heard the whistle as the projectiles screamed through the air. He scooped up Louise, ignoring her startled squawk, and thrust himself backwards again, then again. With unerring accuracy, the ground where he had stood with Louise, and then again where he had first leapt away to, exploded like the first.

The distance separating Shirou and Fouquet had increased to three hundred feet.

No more bangs went off, allowing Shirou the first moment to still himself and look up at the enemy — and there, silhouetted against the bigger waning moon, was a large wooden ship, floating in midair. Aboard it, standing astride the bowsprit, Shirou could just barely make out a tall figure.

"Trace, on."

His vision enhanced and the figure became clearer, but in the faint light of the moons, silhouetted as the figure was, it was impossible to make out any details. The best he could make of it was a coat, either red, black, or blue, and a pair of pants, either white, grey, cream, or beige. A head of long hair swayed in the wind — so it was a female.

"OI!" the figure called down. "YOU COMIN', OR WHAT?"

Fouquet stood, still gasping a little, and glanced once at Shirou, then rose slowly into the air with what Shirou recognized as Levitation magic. Before he could think of what he was doing, his foot stepped forward to go after her and another bang resounded through the night, softer than the last. Something small and metal passed through the space in front of Shirou's nose, barely missing him.

He turned towards the figure in the sky. Somehow, he knew she was grinning.

"NONE OF THAT, NOW!" her voice called down. "YOU'LL BE STAYIN' WHERE YOU ARE, YA HEAR?"

Shirou frowned and stepped back in front of Louise.

"Shirou!" she whispered from behind him. "What's going on?!"

"Not now, Master," he murmured back to her. He raised his voice. "TO WHOM DO I OWE THE PLEASURE?"

A musical laughter drifted down from the ship, even as Fouquet rose higher and higher into the air.

"WHERE BE THE FUN IN TELLING YOU?" the other woman called back. "I'M SURE A HERO AS FAMOUS AS KING ARTHUR CAN FIGURE IT OUT HIMSELF!"

"King Arthur?!" Louise hissed. "Shirou, what is she _talking_ about?!"

"Not _now_, Louise," Shirou hissed back at her.

Fouquet had finally reached the ship and boarded it.

"ALAS, IT SEEMS WE'LL HAVE TO FIGHT AGAIN SOME OTHER DAY!" the woman called down. "FAREWELL, YOUR MAJESTY!"

The ship lurched — "HO!" — and flew off and into the night, leaving Shirou alone with Louise and his thoughts.

"It seems I underestimated this place," Shirou said quietly to Louise. "For there is no doubt in my mind that that woman was a Heroic Spirit."

That heavy presence, that uncanny precision with a flintlock pistol, manning an entire ship by herself — no, there was no doubt that the long-haired woman who had shot at him four times, thrice with her cannons and once with a pistol, was one of the vaunted Heroic Spirits.

That she had mentioned King Arthur, that she had mistaken him for that lofty king, for Saber, a hero that did not exist in this world's history (and he had checked, just to be sure), meant that she could only be a hero from the Throne, and a hero from his world, at that.

"Oho?" Derflinger spoke up seriously, devoid of all humor. "So one of _them_ kind is a player on this board, now, too, eh?"

"Shirou," Louise started, "what does that mean?"

Shirou stared off at where the ship had flown away, flown as easily and as swiftly as though it had been sailing through water — a galleon, if he remembered the term right, a European warship from the era when Japan had still been fighting itself during the Warring States period. And he had just come face to face — if at a distance — with a Heroic Spirit who had such a thing as her Noble Phantasm.

"It means," Shirou said solemnly, "that our situation just became a whole lot more complicated."

Around them, in the quiet of the night, the students and teachers were rushing out of their beds and through the halls to see what all of the commotion about, and the felled golem crumbled back into dirt.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_Servant:_ Emiya Shirou/Shirou Emiya (King Apeiron)

_Class:_ Gandalfr

_Strength:_ B+ (A+)

_Mana:_ A++

_Endurance:_ B+

_Agility:_ B+ (A+)

_Luck:_ A+

**Class Skills**:

_Magic Resistance:_ C (Cancel spells with a chant below two verses ("Line level"). Cannot defend against Magecraft on the level of High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals.)

_Mental Interference: _C (A potent compulsion that ensures the cooperation of the familiar with the Master; it compels him to defer to her and to place her safety and wellbeing as paramount to his own success. This is the average level of compulsion, necessary for creatures that would not normally obey their Masters. Equivalent to the compulsion needed to "tame" a Rhyme Dragon.)

_Master of Arms:_ EX (Can wield any weapon he grasps as though he had practiced with it his whole life, including Noble Phantasms. As long as it is recognizable as a weapon, he will be provided with what he needs to wield it, including knowledge of its use and "permission" to use it. At this level, instead of appearing foreign, any knowledge gained on a weapon's function will seem instinctual. Bonus effect of ranking up Agility and Strength and dramatically increasing speed whenever he holds a weapon. As Shirou's compatibility with the Gandalfr class is unrivaled, this skill is naturally of the highest ranking.)

**Personal Skills:**

_Magecraft:_ C

_Protection of the Fairies:_ A

_Clairvoyance:_ C

_Eye of the Mind (True):_ B

**Noble Phantasms:**

_**Name:**_ Escalvatine: Sword of Rapture

_Title:_ The Light of Salvation that Cleanses the World

_Rank:_ EX

_Type: _Anti-World

_Range: _1-99

_Number of Targets: _1000

_**Name: **_Sarras

_Title: _The Hidden Treasure

_Rank: _E — A++

_Type:_ Anti-Unit

_Range:_ N/A

_Number of Targets:_ N/A

_**Name:**_ Unlimited Blade Works

_Title:_ Infinite Creation of Swords

_Rank:_ E — A++

_Type:_ ?

_Range:_ ?

_Number of Targets:_ ?

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**Once again, discussion is here: www fanfiction net /forum/The-Creator-s-Room/118200/**

**So…yeah. 25000 words is a bit much to expect of me on this sort of update schedule. It might have seemed like I put out 25000 words of Miracle of Zero only two weeks after finishing Fate/Revenant Sword, but that was misleading. I had already had about 10000 words written for the first chapter by the time I finished FRS's True Epilogue (and I'd spent the better part of two months writing just **_**that**_** out). This size chapter is really more my speed. I'm not GB, folks!**

**I made a serious assumption here about what tower the students sleep in. I looked over it in the anime, and at first, it appears that students sleep in the Void tower, but the anime also flip-flops the towers around (or seems to), so it's not exactly reliable. For simplicity, I set it up so that Earth is where Second Years sleep, Fire is Third Years, Wind is First Years, and teachers sleep in Water (as a nod to Henrietta's royal water alignment). If you know more about this than me, then please feel free to correct me.**

**Also, you guys really came through. I wasn't expecting anywhere near that many reviews for the first chapter, but man, was I pleasantly surprised. Thanks, everyone.**

**Also, also, been to BL (Beast's Lair, for the uninformed). Apparently, they hate me over there. The majority, anyway. Some of them like me, but it seemed like the majority was either, "Yeah, **_**no,**_**" or generally ambivalent. That's fine. You can make some people happy some of the time, but you can't make everyone happy all of the time.**

**Anyway, trying to cut down on info dumps, so this should be the last major one for a while. They'll creep up now and again where Shirou or Louise need to correct each other or explain something to one another, but for the most part, we're past it, now.**

**Originally, I wasn't going to give you guys that stat sheet I gave you a little ways up, but I decided that some of Shirou's actions would make a whole lot more sense if you understood that the Gandalfr runes have him under a mental compulsion. You should note, though, that this is **_**subtle**_**. A competent Caster-type Servant (like Medea) would probably notice it immediately, but since Shirou isn't a Caster type for one, and his mentality isn't totally alien to what the compulsion is leaning him towards for another, he won't notice he's being affected at all until it's gone.**

**And yes, the Staff of Destruction is the Monkey King's staff from **_**Journey to the West**_**. I took some liberties with the powers in order to make them fit Nasuverse (because a Noble Phantasm that wields itself is…yeah.), but only to the extent of adapting them rather than completely altering them. Also, I've not yet decided whether it's the **_**real**_** Ruyi Jingu Bang or just the prototype.**

**As always, read, review, enjoy.**


	4. Secret Maneuvers

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter IV: Secret Maneuvers  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

Despite the damage and commotion Fouquet had caused, the teachers ultimately decided to wait until the morning to discuss everything and get Louise's testimony, so she and Shirou were allowed to return to her room for the night.

Louise had seemed very grateful for the reprieve — the door had barely closed behind them before she'd collapsed face-first into her mattress and sheets. Shirou had had to change her into her pajamas, her nightgown, because she'd fallen asleep almost immediately, and he hadn't the heart to force her awake long enough for her to change herself.

Ironically, he had finally completed that task she had assigned him his second day in this place: dressing her.

Sleep did not come as easily for Shirou as it did for Louise, however, and some hours later, he found himself lying awake on the spare mattress that Louise had had Siesta and a few other of the castle staff move into the corner of her room, staring up at the ceiling with his hands folded behind his head. Derflinger was propped up against the wall a few inches from the edge of the mattress and hadn't spoken since Fouquet had made good her escape.

What kept Shirou awake was restlessness and unease. He had just come face to face (in a manner of speaking) with a Heroic Spirit, after all. To meet such an enemy, to realize and know exactly what you had to face, exactly how _strong _the guy across from you was, would have troubled even the calmest of minds_._

The problem Shirou faced, however, was not worry over the strength of his new enemy, but rather what that enemy's very presence _meant_.

From the start, Shirou had assumed that he was alone in this world, that there was no one who possessed the sort of knowledge and abilities he had access to, and he had concluded that he could leave, then, as soon as he had prepared his new little Master sufficiently. It minimized the time he would have to spend away from his own world, from the people he cared for, from the responsibilities that had been left empty because he was no longer there to fill them. It meant that he could leave just about as soon as he found out how.

But the presence of a Heroic Spirit — one native to his world rather than this one, at that — changed everything.

Whoever it was, her allegiance was to someone else, and whoever it was she was loyal to, that person had been interested in Fouquet, which automatically made both that person and the Heroic Spirit an enemy — assuming, of course, that the Heroic Spirit wasn't Fouquet's Servant in the first place, which was certainly a possibility.

Of course, Fouquet hadn't been expecting backup, had she? If she had entered the castle with the knowledge of what kind of firepower that Heroic Spirit could bring to bear, there would have been no need to construct that golem — that Heroic Spirit could have just blasted the wall apart with a barrage of cannon fire.

So the Heroic Spirit probably wasn't Fouquet's Servant. Probably. It was still possible, he supposed, so for now, he'd have to work under the assumption that either option was right.

Either way, whoever was in charge, whether it was Fouquet or some mysterious benefactor, they were dangerous and hadn't cared one bit about putting the lives of innocent children and school teachers at risk. That immediately made them a threat and someone Shirou couldn't allow to do as they pleased; to let them continue to endanger people for their own selfish means and goals was a denial of Emiya Shirou.

Beyond that, they were also a threat to his diminutive little Master, so he couldn't let them go either way.

He wished he had had the convenience of Master's Clairvoyance — the skill that, in the Grail Wars, had allowed Rin to see the parameters and skills of the enemy Servants (Shirou hadn't been a very good Master, so he hadn't had the same luxury), because it would've made it much easier to see where he stood compared to that hero.

In the end, battles like that came down to special skills and Noble Phantasms, yes, but it still would've been useful. Plans worked best when you knew how strong you were and how strong your enemy was, because then you could account for those strengths when deciding how to fight. Knowing how he compared to her would've made it easier to know what he had to watch out for and what he could relax on.

But what bothered him even more than all of that was a simple question that had echoed in his head all night.

If there was one Heroic Spirit wandering around this world, then could there be more?

It was a troubling thought. If Fouquet's ally, a Heroic Spirit in her own right, had a Noble Phantasm that allowed her to sail the skies as easily as the seas and belch out a virtually limitless barrage of cannon fire, then what other sorts of Heroes might have been called into this world as well?

"Hey, partner," Derf spoke up quietly.

Shirou turned his head to the side to look at his new sword — how ironic that he had, in fact, come across something of Noble Phantasm quality in that dingy little shop. "Something the matter, Derflinger?"

"Derf is fine," the sword assured him. "But that's not it — partner, that was some pretty amazing stuff you did out there against that golem."

Shirou snorted. "When you compare a lion to a flea, _everything_ seems more amazing about the lion."

For all that it was complex magic, the golem itself hadn't been particularly powerful or threatening. Sure, for the average mage, it might have proven some trouble, but someone like Shirou or a high class magus like Rin could take it out relatively easily. It was just a matter of having the right amount of firepower.

"That's not it," Derflinger denied. "Or rather, that's not _all_. Partner, what you did out there is something ordinary humans couldn't have done, and that sword you wielded — let me tell you, partner, I've seen many swords, and no mage could make a sword like that. You were too fast, too strong, too good, and it didn't have anything to do with those runes on your hand."

Shirou felt his eyebrow rise and shifted around a little so that he was lying on his side. He lifted his left hand; on his skin, cast pale in the moonlight, the runes looked like fire.

"You know about these runes?"

"Some," Derf hedged, "but it's been a while, so I don't remember too much — but that's still not the point. Partner, all of that was amazing and everything, but when that Heroic Spirit showed up, you didn't so much as flinch, and you even knew what it _was_. These mages here, they've gotten too comfy. They don't know stuff about Heroic Spirits and Noble Phantasms. But you _do_."

There was a long moment of silence. Shirou stared up at the sword, haloed in the moonlight and still rusty, and despite the fact that it had often cracked jokes and had an irreverent, saucy personality, thought then that it was also worthy of the sort of age and wisdom it must have.

Six thousand years — what an existence that was. Shirou had fought heroes that were younger than that, had fought the _first_ hero who was _still_ younger than that. He had seen weapons that had been forged, used, rusted, and broken in a _fraction_ of that time — had _wielded_ such a weapon himself, once upon a time.

"Ask your question, Derflinger," he said gravely.

"Partner," Derflinger started just as gravely, "are you a Heroic Spirit, too?"

Shirou smirked and chuckled. It was a flattering question, but, "I'm afraid not. I'm simply a mage with an impossibly strong body."

"Oho?" Derflinger asked. "Saying that despite the fact that you're carrying around a Noble Phantasm?"

For a moment, Shirou was going to say that he carried around a lot more than just _one_ Noble Phantasm, but changed his mind before he even said the first word.

"A Noble Phantasm is, by definition, an object of legend wielded by a Heroic Spirit that encompasses a feat or deed that hero accomplished in life," Shirou told Derf instead. "That sword I used tonight is indeed a sword of such quality that no mortal, human or otherwise, could have crafted it, but it is not a Noble Phantasm."

"…Carrying around something like that, a sword could feel inadequate," Derf mumbled.

"If it helps, it can't talk."

"That's a shame. It would've been nice to have another sword to talk to. You know, to have an intelligent conversation."

Shirou couldn't help the small chuckle that broke free of his lips. Derf's quillons wiggled and let loose a rusty sound that _might_ have been laughter.

It was remarkable, really, how easy it was to get along with Derflinger, and it was also incredibly surreal to be having a conversation with a talking _sword_.

But there were things that Shirou wanted to know — needed to know. There were problems that needed solutions, questions that needed answers, and this talking sword might just be the only one who could solve those problems and answer those questions.

"You know, though, Derf," Shirou said slyly, "that does bring up a question of my own."

"Lay it on me, partner."

"Just how is it that you know about Heroic Spirits, anyway?"

Derflinger gave what must have been his equivalent of a snort. "You don't get to be a sword my age without seeing one or two of them, partner, let me tell you. Things might be relatively calm _now_, but there have been a few crises through the ages where mankind need a little, ah, _extra_ help."

An answer without an answer.

"I suppose so," Shirou allowed. "You _are_ six thousand years old, after all."

"Damn straight."

"Now that I think of it, though, wasn't that Brimir's time six thousand years ago? A sword as old as you, did you ever get the chance to meet him?"

"Eh," Derf hedged. "Six thousand years is a long time, Partner. It's been a while, so my memory's a little fuzzy. Sorry."

"I would think it hard," Shirou said carefully, "to forget something like the figurehead of the oldest religion on the continent."

"You'd be surprised," Derf said easily. "After the first thousand years, everything starts to flow together. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday."

Shirou felt his eyebrow twitch and the sense of disbelief coiling in his stomach almost made him want to laugh. "You're a sword, Derf. You don't eat breakfast."

"Exactly!"

Shirou sighed and rolled back onto his back. He'd let it go for now. He needed to get some sleep, and there was a whole host of other problems that would be waiting for him when he got up.

"If you don't want to talk about it yet, I understand," he told Derf. "For the moment, holding back such information from someone you've just met is only natural. As long as it doesn't endanger my Master, it can wait."

"Partner," Derf began seriously — all trace of joking and evasion had left his voice, "we're not quite done yet."

Shirou shifted again and settled his gaze on the wiggling quillons; it was the closest he could get to staring Derf in the eyes.

"I'm not sure I believe you," Derf told him solemnly. "You say you aren't a Heroic Spirit, and maybe you aren't. Maybe that means you're a different _kind_ of spirit. Maybe that means you're a Vengeful Spirit and maybe that means you're something else entirely. Either way, that Heroic Spirit up there seemed to recognize you — called you King Arthur."

Shirou snorted again. "The comparison is flattering, but I'm not King Arthur," he explained dryly. "Though I imagine she would have taken it in good humor, Arturia would've set that woman straight if she were here."

"You knew this King Arthur fellow, then?" Derflinger probed.

"I did," Shirou confirmed shortly. "She was the one taught me how to wield a sword."

"Oho," Derf laughed mirthlessly. "So my partner has had the rare fortune of meeting at least _two_ of those Heroic Spirits, both women at that. I guess this King Arthur person was a woman in disguise, am I right? Now _this_ sounds like a story I wanna hear."

"Unfortunately, it's not one I want to tell."

Shirou rolled over onto his other side, facing the wall and away from Derflinger. The sword jiggled in his sheath.

"Don't be like that!"

Shirou didn't move.

"Good night, Derf."

"Partner! Hey, partner! Come on! Don't leave me hanging like this!"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was immediately after breakfast the next morning when Shirou and Louise were escorted up to the headmaster's office at the top of the centermost tower, where they found the majority of the teaching staff fidgeting, pacing, and otherwise acting nervously. The only one who seemed completely unbothered was the old man sitting behind the desk near the back end of the room, his beard and mustache trailing solemnly down his face and front as he watched everyone else.

The cause of all the commotion, of course, was the theft of the magic Staff of Destruction (Ruyi Jingu Bang, as Shirou knew it to be), and the way and person who had conducted the felony.

Fouquet. As the blacksmith had explained the day before, Fouquet was a thief notorious for striking rich nobles and stealing their most valuable treasures — silently, in the middle of the night, without getting caught.

Or so it seemed, at least. If she had but timed her attack a bit better, Fouquet would have escaped everyone's notice, even Shirou's. She could've been in and gone before anyone was ever the wiser.

So why hadn't she?

If she could have timed her attack perfectly, then perhaps she _had_. Perhaps, in attacking when she had, she had intended to accomplish a secondary goal simultaneously.

For example, eliminating a fighter who could destroy four bronze golems in one swing, someone who could, conceivably, be a threat to her or whoever was pulling her strings.

Or perhaps, whoever was pulling her strings had used her to try to measure exactly how powerful Shirou actually was.

In his head, Shirou created a graph. The top was shrouded in mystery, but connected to it were two figures: Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt and the Heroic Spirit who had rescued her.

"This was Fouquet!" one of the teachers said angrily. "That thief came in here and made off with the Staff of Destruction! You saw it, didn't you? He left a note on the wall to make sure we knew!"

"But Fouquet robs nobles!" another protested. "Why would he rob the Academy?"

"Does it matter why, you dolt?" the first asked scathingly. "We were robbed! The why doesn't matter!"

"Where were the guards?"

"What would guards have done? Commoners can't beat a mage like Fouquet! That's like trying to douse a forest fire with a single bucket of water!"

"Well, then which of us was supposed to be on guard duty last night?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Shirou noticed Mrs. Chevreuse twitch and fidget.

"Mrs. Chevreuse!" one of the others called immediately. Mrs. Chevreuse jumped a full foot in the air, startled. "It was you who was supposed to guard the vault last night!"

"I'm sorry!" Mrs. Chevreuse cried, sobbing pitifully. "I'm so very sorry…!"

"Sorry doesn't change the fact that the Staff of Destruction has been stolen! How do you intend to make up for this mistake? Can you _pay_ for it!?"

"Oh no," sobbed Mrs. Chevreuse, collapsing to her knees. "I…I just paid off my house!"

The old man behind the desk stood, and immediately, everyone stopped talking.

"I think it best if we all keep our heads about us," the old man said calmly.

"But Old Osmond!" the teacher who'd been blaming Chevreuse protested. "Mrs. Chevreuse failed in her duty, and as a result of her neglect, while she was sleeping soundly in her bed, a valuable artifact was stolen from the Academy!"

Old Osmond pierced the man with a cool stare. "Blaming each other won't get anything done, Mr. Gimli. The more time you waste pointing fingers at one another for this tragedy, the more time Fouquet has to disappear with the staff. Besides, can we all honestly say we have always guarded the vault with the diligence you now blame Mrs. Chevreuse for lacking?"

His piercing gaze swept over all of the assembled teachers, all of whom, except for Mr. Colbert, who was watching everything with an unreadable expression on his face, dropped their heads in silent shame.

"That is our situation," Old Osmond continued. "Getting angry and placing blame won't solve anything. We are all of us responsible, even me, because we never considered the possibility that a thief might make his way into our Academy. We allowed ourselves to grow complacent and believe that we were untouchable because there are so many mages employed here. That sort of thinking is the reason why we're in this sort of mess."

Silence greeted him, and Shirou allowed himself to feel respect for the unassuming old man in front of him now. Whatever else this Osmond fellow did, however powerful he turned out to be, he was someone worth respecting.

"Now then," Old Osmond cleared his throat. "Who was it that witnessed the attack?"

Mr. Colbert, who had remained motionless like a statue up until now, suddenly came to life and sprang forward.

"It was Miss Vallière and her familiar," he said, gesturing to Louise and Shirou.

"Oh," Osmond sounded somewhere between amused and interested, like someone who'd just been given a key piece of a puzzle he was putting together. "Interesting. Tell me, then, about the event. Leave nothing out."

Shirou's foot was barely an inch off the floor before Louise took one quick step forward and rattled off a report. She'd beaten him to it.

"My Servant and I were returning to my room following a day of shopping in town," she said clearly. "An Earth golem appeared and nearly crushed us before breaking a hole in the wall with its fist. A hooded figure riding on the golem's shoulder entered through the hole, came back out with a staff, and left that message on the wall. Also, he seemed to have trouble lifting the staff, so he had to drag it behind him."

She sounded like a soldier, Shirou thought. Where had she learned to give reports like that?

"The Staff of Destruction weighs approximately nine tons, Tristainian Imperial," Osmond broke in, stroking his beard and eyeing Louise shrewdly. "Even with a spell to make it lighter and easier to carry, it would still be far too heavy for any mage below Triangle to move. Carry on, Miss Vallière."

Eight point nine one, to be exact, Shirou amended mentally. _Shirou_ might be able to pick it up, but he doubted that he could put it to any good use, considering its weight. It'd be easier just to Trace a copy and rely on the Monkey King's copied stamina and strength than to try wielding the original himself.

"My Servant and I confronted the thief," Louise started again dutifully. "After a short altercation, we managed to knock Fouquet off his golem. My Servant was about to apprehend him when an unknown accomplice atop a flying ship came to Fouquet's rescue and helped her escape with the staff."

"Flying ship?"

"Albion," someone muttered.

"Just a moment, Miss Vallière," Mr. Colbert interrupted. "I'm afraid I don't understand something. You say that you had a servant with you, but was it not this man, your familiar, who was with you last night?"

Louise blinked owlishly and then grimaced, floundering for a moment as she tried to decide on what to say. The uncertainty was written across her face when she finally turned to Shirou with a pleading look.

Right. Shirou to the rescue.

"If I may," Shirou said politely, "a Servant is a term for a type of human familiar. While I technically don't qualify, Louise uses the term as a sign of respect. Please treat it as though she were saying nothing out of the ordinary."

A lie, probably one of the best he'd ever told. He stopped the wry grin that wanted to form on his lips; he really _had_ spent too much time with Rin when he was younger.

Nonetheless, everyone bought it and Colbert's eyes lit up with understanding and something else, something Shirou couldn't quite identify.

"Miss Vallière," Old Osmond spoke up, "you say it was a flying ship? Like a galleon or a ship of the line?"

"U-um, yes, that," Louise answered with a nod. "Like a regular ship, only flying in the air. It had cannons and sails and everything."

"I see." Old Osmond stroked his beard again. "And did you happen to see what sort of colors she was flying?"

Louise blanched. "Colors?"

"Was it an Albionese flag? Or Germanian? Or Gallian?" Mr. Colbert clarified. "Anything that could identify which country it belonged to?"

"U-um, I-I don't think," Louise stuttered. She shook her head. "I mean, I didn't really get a g-good look…"

"It's a flying ship," someone muttered. "Albion's the only ones who'd dare do that sort of thing right now."

"Blasted Reconquista," someone else cursed lowly. "To rebel against Albion's Crown is one thing, but to attack _us_, now, too?"

Old Osmond shook his head. "No matter who it was the ship belonged to, there's no way they could possibly make it out of the country without being seen. We'll just have to ask in the nearby cities if anyone saw anything. With any luck, we'll be able to send someone out after them before they can make it back to whichever country they report to."

"Will that really work?"

"Sounds kinda flimsy…"

"Even if they went as fast as they possibly could, they would still need to stop somewhere to rest before the night was through," Mr. Colbert agreed with Old Osmond. "If not after, then they would have had to stop in a town before the attack in order to eat and feed the crew. An operation this delicate would require everyone be ready and awake. Even if no one saw anything last night, there has to be evidence somewhere — they had to stop to get supplies and food so the crew could be fed and well equipped —"

"There was no crew," Shirou said it before he could stop himself.

Everyone stopped.

"Mister Familiar?" Old Osmond asked curiously. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

Shirou grimaced, then sighed and stepped forward, conscious of all the eyes on him.

"That ship isn't like any other ship you'll have ever seen," he explained solemnly. "Because of that, the captain doesn't need a crew to sail — the ship will respond to whatever she commands of it because it's a part of who she is. It's as much a part of her as your wand is a part of you. Tell me, do you need a crew to cast your spells?"

For a long moment, no one answered.

"You sound as if you are familiar with this captain and her ship, Mister Familiar," Mr. Colbert said shrewdly. "Perhaps you could find her if you tried."

"Not on my best day," Shirou admitted shamelessly.

Old Osmond sighed. "In that case, I suppose we'll simply have to send someone out to see if they can find Fouquet and her mystery helper. With any luck —"

"If you do," Shirou warned, "and by some miracle, they manage to find Fouquet and that captain, then you should be prepared to write a letter of condolences."

Again, Shirou was suddenly the center of attention as everyone in the room turned to him, alarmed.

"The enemy you'd be facing," Shirou continued, "has a range advantage, can fly on her ship, and can bombard you with virtually limitless cannon fire. If you actually managed to get in close enough to render her ship ineffective, she can probably shrug off anything short of a Triangle level spell, and even if she doesn't use her pistols to pick you off at medium range, if she lands a single punch on you, you're as good as dead."

Various looks of surprise and disbelief greeted his statement.

"Surely you jest —" someone started.

"In the time it takes you to hear what I'm saying," Shirou cut him off, "she can cross a forty yard distance and punch you hard enough to knock your head clean off your shoulders."

All of the teachers turned suddenly either sickly green or pale white, and a tense, uncomfortable silence settled over the room as the gravity of what he said registered. Good. If they didn't take this seriously, then someone would die needlessly.

Pursuing a Heroic Spirit was foolishness for an ordinary human. He would save them from such stupidity.

"You mean," Mr. Colbert spoke up at last, eyeing Shirou narrowly, "like your duel with Mister Gramont, Mister Familiar?"

Shirou looked over at Mr. Colbert, and found that he wasn't surprised that Colbert knew of his fight with Guiche, or perhaps had even witnessed it in some manner. Scrying wasn't exactly an unknown art, even amongst modern mages, though as far as he knew, it also counted as witchcraft.

Like Levitation, which was considered a basic spell in this world. Right.

"Worse," Shirou corrected grimly. "I never intended to do Guiche serious or permanent injury, so I had to hold back to stop from maiming or killing him. She will have no such qualms — every attack will be aimed to kill, and no magic short of Square rank will be able to kill her. Even then, even if you hit her, a single spell might not be enough."

The last part was mostly a guess, but until he knew what had summoned him and what sort of magic had been employed, it was safer to assume that the enemy was a full-blown Heroic Spirit rather than just a pale shade stuffed into a Servant container, especially in light of his own situation. In that case, what was walking around with that ship was basically a god wearing human skin — if not high Magic Resistance, then she'd have rather high endurance. Even if Square ranked magic was the equivalent of a Ten Count in power — and it was hard to estimate, so he could be wrong — it was entirely possible that a Heroic Spirit could survive magic like that.

After all, there were one or two Dead Apostle Ancestors who were strong enough to withstand an attack from Excalibur.

And Excalibur could destroy a _mountain_.

"Mister Familiar," Mr. Colbert began; he and Osmond seemed to be the only ones unaffected by everything Shirou had so far said, "could _you_ defeat her?"

For a long moment, Shirou didn't say anything. He wondered at the wisdom of revealing the truth, at the wisdom of trying to convince these mages, stuck in their ways, of something that went against everything they believed they knew. His Master was one thing — as he would be working with her for the foreseeable future, it was in his best interests to make sure she knew what he could do and what he knew of magic — but these other mages would be harder to convince by simple virtue of being older and more set in their ways.

He hesitated and looked at Louise, who caught his eyes and gave a slow, short nod.

Shirou turned back to Colbert.

"If I could get in close and if I'm physically stronger than her, then maybe," he explained. In a fist fight or sword fight, he was fairly confident he could defeat the unknown Heroic Spirit, but there was no way to be sure until he tried it, and there was no way to be sure that he was stronger than her until he fought her. "Collateral damage would be minimized and bystander casualties would be low."

He let that sink in for a moment.

"But her…_ship_ gives her a range advantage," he went on. He had almost called it a Noble Phantasm. "It allows her to control how close I could get at any given time. It means that I would have to exert more effort to defeat her. To summarize it, wherever she and I fought would be wiped off the maps."

The Sword of Rapture, the Light of Salvation that Cleanses the World — if it came down to a fight of Noble Phantasms, and as long as they were both sufficiently prepared, it would indeed come down to that, then he might have to utilize his sword. No, there was no better option — if she could keep him moving enough that he couldn't Trace another Noble Phantasm and fire it at her as an arrow, then he would definitely have to use his sword.

If that happened, then it wasn't an exaggeration. Wherever they happened to be fighting, it would be wiped off the map.

"Preposterous!" someone sputtered.

"Impossible!"

Low mutters of similar disagreements rumbled throughout the room.

Mrs. Chevreuse tittered nervously. "Please don't make jokes like that, Mister Familiar."

"It's not a joke," Shirou told her. Everything stopped again. "A fight of that magnitude would definitely result in the destruction of the surrounding area. Any standing structure would either be obliterated or damaged beyond repair. If it was in a city, the number of civilian casualties would be almost total."

Another long stretch of silence followed. Most of the teachers were staring at him, watching him with something strange in their expressions, as though they didn't quite know what to make of him.

"We've gotten quite off topic," Old Osmond said finally. "Mister Familiar, disregarding all you have so far said about this mysterious woman who helped Fouquet escape, could you capture Fouquet himself if you went after him?"

Shirou looked Osmond in the eyes. "No. By now, Fouquet is long gone. Retrieving the Staff of Destruction is nothing more than a fantasy."

Old Osmond closed his eyes briefly. "I see." He cast a look out at everyone else assembled in the office. "Then you are all dismissed, for now. We will concentrate on repairing the damaged wall and fixing everything that was broken in Fouquet's attack. Classes will be canceled until further notice."

He gave them all a strong look. "The Staff of Destruction is beyond our reach, now, so the best thing we can do is try to prevent another such theft and go on with our lives."

For a moment, nothing happened, and then, one by one, the teachers began to file out of the room, muttering amongst themselves and shooting Shirou glances as they passed. For now, they seemed to have believed him, to have understood the gravity of the situation, but he had no doubt that they would return to their rooms, and before the day was out, they would convince themselves that it was impossible, that it was all lies and exaggerations.

Louise made to leave, too, and Shirou fell into step behind her, but they were stopped.

"Miss Vallière, Mister Familiar, please remain behind," Osmond said.

Shirou and Louise shared a glance, then frowned and moved back to their original spots as everyone else left. Then, it was just the four of them — Osmond, Colbert, Louise, and Shirou.

"Mister Familiar," Osmond said once the last teacher had left, "I notice you've been spending quite a bit of time in the library. Might I guess that you've been researching those runes etched upon the back of your hand?"

"Among other things," Shirou answered vaguely.

"Might I also guess that you've yet to discover anything of value in the process?"

"You'd be right."

"The main section of the library is open to the students," Mister Colbert joined in. "Any book containing what you might call 'sensitive' material is removed and placed in the Fenrir Library that only we teachers have access to."

"There are some books that would be quite hazardous in the hands of an ill-prepared student," Osmond agreed.

It was as he'd estimated before, then. Of course. You didn't leave out a bunch of books that students could misuse.

"The reason why you have found nothing in the main section of the library is because the information you're looking for is…shall we say, against church doctrine. An ordinary student doesn't understand the value of unbiased academic information, so if they read something like that, they might be inclined to report it to the church."

"In other words," Shirou translated, "it's useful information that doesn't have that blatant religious slant, but whatever this is doesn't fit neatly and tidily in what the church preaches, so if they knew about it, you could be excommunicated or tried for heresy."

"Exactly," Colbert nodded.

"Wh-what?" Louise squeaked. "Heresy? _Excommunicated?_"

Colbert walked over to Osmond's desk and picked up a book. "Immediately following the summoning ceremony, I started researching the runes on the back of your hand," he explained, flipping through the pages. "The translation was a bit difficult, but in the end, this is what I managed to come up with."

He showed Shirou the page he had turned to. "Gandalfr."

"The legendary familiar of the great Founder Brimir himself," Osmond cut in. "As long as it was a weapon, Gandalfr could wield it as naturally as if he had done so all his life. That is what you are, Mister Familiar. Through whatever means, you were brought into this world and made Gandalfr."

Shirou read through the entry in the book and felt suddenly as though everything was starting to make sense. It wasn't a complete answer, no, but at the very least, it gave him more to work with than the other books had.

"You said that Gandalfr was Brimir's familiar," he began. "And according to the runes on my hand, _I_ am Gandalfr. Brimir is famous and revered as a mage who used Void magic. Does that mean that Louise…?"

Osmond and Colbert shared a look.

"It's a possibility," Osmond admitted gravely, "but as Brimir himself is the only known one, there is no way for us to know. Additionally, the Church would not take kindly to the idea that there might be someone like that out there, so it would be best to keep it to yourself, for Miss Vallière's sake."

"Shirou?" Louise asked confusedly.

Shirou allowed himself a small smirk. "It's as I told you, Master. You can't know for sure unless you've tried."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"This is the third day in a row. Even the Ball of Frigg was canceled!"

They were sitting in Louise's room doing essentially nothing. For the time being, all students had been confined to the castle while the teachers returned the damaged wall back to its original condition.

"Fouquet's golem did quite a bit of damage," Shirou reminded Louise. "It's not something you can fix very easily. The teachers can't very well teach if they're busy trying to repair that giant hole in the wall, can they?"

"Well, no, but…"

If he were honest, it was partly his fault, too. The golem had done some damage by punching the wall, but when it had careened sideways after he had dismembered it, gravity and the golem's mass had taken that relatively small hole and made it much, much bigger.

One way or another, Servants managed to do serious collateral damage.

"And if the students were able to go outside as they pleased," he continued, "wouldn't that distract the teachers who are trying to get everything back together?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"Then there's nothing you can do."

Louise shot Shirou her best venomous look. "I hate it when you have to be all logical and right like that," she grumbled.

Shirou tried his best not to smile. Louise really was too cute.

"Anyway, Master," he changed the subject, "have you given any thought to what we discussed the other day?"

She scowled at him. "I have."

"And?"

"And I still don't believe it!" she declared stubbornly. "Void is a sacred element! Only the Founder Brimir could use Void magic! To say that I could be a Void mage is blasphemous!"

She had said much the same each time he tried to discuss it with her. Each time, she stubbornly refused to accept even the possibility that she had the ability to use Void magic.

"You must admit that it makes sense, Master," Shirou argued. He held up his left hand. "These runes mark me as Gandalfr, and Gandaflr is recorded as the familiar of the Void mage known as Brimir. It should only make sense that you, as my Master, are also a Void mage."

"That — that doesn't mean anything!" she insisted. "It's a coincidence, Shirou! Just a coincidence! I…c-can't be a Void mage!"

Louise looked away uncomfortably. "…can I?"

It came out in a whisper, uncertain, childish, and desperate. She didn't want to believe, didn't want to dare to hope that she could have that sort of power and the prestige that would come along with it, so she did the only thing that made sense: she rejected the possibility.

But Shirou couldn't allow it. Allowing it would be stagnation; she wouldn't be able to move forward as long as she tried to protect herself from pain and failure. Like that, she wouldn't be able to grow.

Shirou opened his mouth, but Derflinger beat him to it. "You should listen to Partner, girly."

"Derf?"

"I was around back then, so I know what I'm talking about," Derf explained. "Ya got all those other familiars, right? Frogs and stuff are Water familiars. Dragons? If it's a Wind dragon, it's a Wind familiar. Salamanders and Fire dragons are Fire familiars. Moles and badgers and the like, those are Earth familiars. But Gandalfr's a familiar of the Void."

"Void?" Louise squeaked. She glanced frantically at Shirou's left hand.

"Then," Shirou began, "Brimir?"

Derf snorted. "It's been a while since one showed up, but you ain't the first Gandalfr, Partner — you ain't even the second. Brimir might've been the _first_ Void mage, but he's definitely not the _only_ one to ever live."

"Th-then," Louise started, her voice filled with fragile hope, "I'm n-not…the only one like this?"

"Oh, they're a rare thing, Void mages," Derf said. "But there've been several over the years. Funny thing, though, they always seem to show up when stuff's about to blow up."

There was a pause as that sunk in, and Shirou translated it to mean that Void mages were often born in times of great upheaval. Louise seemed torn between denial, vindicated satisfaction, and pride.

"Or maybe stuff blows up _because_ there are Void mages," Derf added. "Huh. You know, I never thought of it that way."

And, suddenly, the tentative pride in Louise's shoulders sank into misery.

"I'm never going to get any better," she despaired. "All of my spells will just blow up on me. That's the only thing I'll ever be good for. Need something destroyed? Just call Louise the Zero. All she has to do is try to cast magic and it'll get blown up either way!"

"Louise…"

Derf let out a rusty chuckle. "You didn't think it would be that easy, didja, girly? Void magic is powerful stuff. Ya can't just wave your wand around and hope it works. If you don't know what you're doing, then all your spells are just gonna go boom!"

Louise sank lower in her chair, shoulders drooping and head hung. He couldn't leave her like that, stewing in her own misery.

He turned to Derf.

"A sword as old as you, who knows so much about Void magic, must know how to learn to control it, right?" Shirou tried.

Derf's quillons wiggled and he let out another rusty laugh. "I'm just a sword, Partner! What do I know about casting Void magic?"

Shirou frowned. "Of course."

Derf's laughter died down. "In all seriousness, Partner," Derf said solemnly, "I can't help. I could tell you all sorts of stories about what Void magic can do and stuff, but teaching the little missy here how to cast it? That's just out of my league. At this point, the only things she can really do are practice until she gets it right or find one of Brimir's old books."

"Right." Shirou sighed. "Because none of those past Void mages thought it would be a good idea to write a book about Void magic. Of course not, that would make it too easy."

Derf snorted. "Of course they wrote books. But the Church, see, they ain't too fond of that sort of thing. You start talking about Void magic, they start getting antsy and screaming things like 'heresy' and 'blasphemy.' Any books about Void magic that don't belong to one of the royal families are either in Romalia's vault, or they were burned."

It was Shirou's turn to snort.

"The parallels are almost frightening," he said dryly. "This Church, my world's Church…the similarities are ridiculous."

Book burning and the like had been a common practice by religious and governmental establishments who had been afraid of allowing dissenting opinions amongst the people or who had viewed the material as a threat to their beliefs or authority. People like Hitler had done it, the Church had done it, and so had many, many other groups with political power. In the case of the Church, what they hadn't burned, they'd locked away in vaults and safes to keep it from the public without losing the knowledge.

In that case, it only made sense. This world's Church, which held the Founder, Brimir, as a holy figure who used his great and powerful Void magic to perform miracles, would undoubtedly do whatever it took to keep the existence of other Void mages from becoming public knowledge.

No, they wouldn't have any other choice, at least if they wanted to maintain legitimacy. If someone showed up using Void magic, it would be child's play for that person to set him or herself up as the second coming of the Founder, or his heir, or his descendent, or something else like that. A Void mage like that could take over the Church, could make him or herself into an emperor or god-king and inspire people to follow simply because he or she had Void magic.

Naturally, the Church couldn't let something like that happen. Ignoring the ramifications to their power base, a Void mage setting themselves up as some sort of living saint would destabilize the balance of power and send all people of the Brimiric nations into chaos.

That would be bad.

"Well —"

At that moment, the door burst open, and Siesta, heaving for breath with an excited smile on her face, stood in the doorway.

"Did you hear?" she asked breathlessly. "Miss Vallière, Her Highness, Princess Henrietta, will be stopping by the Academy on her way back from Germania!"

Louise gave a start. "The Princess?"

Siesta nodded.

"Everyone's preparing for her!" she said excitedly. "They're decorating the Alviss Dining Hall, setting up at the school gates, and — oh!"

She fidgeted a little. "Miss Vallière," Siesta began, "Mister Colbert asked me to help you prepare. You're supposed to wear your formal wear."

"Prepare?" Louise parroted. "When's the Princess supposed to stop by?"

"Oh!" Siesta exclaimed. "Um, today, Miss Vallière. Within the hour."

There was a long moment of silence. Then…

"WHAT?!"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Rows of students raised their staves and wands in unison as the Princess' carriage came through the front gate and passed them by. It drove on to the door of the centermost tower, where it stopped and turned so that its side faced the wood and stonework.

From the rest of the procession, a group of servants raced out of the other carriages and swiftly laid down a red carpet that reached from the Princess' carriage to the doors of the tower, and just as swiftly left. The guardsmen all tensed and bellowed out:

"Presenting Her Royal Highness of the Kingdom of Tristain, Princess Henrietta!"

The first out of the carriage, however, was an old man in his fifties with snow white hair and wearing court robes that looked almost priestly. He stepped down from the carriage and to the side, holding one hand out to help another figure, a rather shapely young woman, down onto the carpet.

Around the courtyard, the students broke out into ecstatic applause. The young woman, perhaps a year or two older than Louise, lifted her head, crowned with a beautiful silver and diamond tiara, and favored the crowd with a polite, radiant smile, and long, elegant wave.

She was certainly beautiful, Shirou could readily acknowledge that. She had a similar sort of beauty to Saber, but it was, at the same time, altogether different.

Saber's beauty had been unearthly, regal, magnificent, but cold and hard, a distant, gallant figure that one could not help but admire. She was an ideal, something that could not be touched or tainted by human hands, a figure so radiant and splendorous that she seemed almost unreal — a surreal beauty befitting someone of her nature.

The Princess, while just as beautiful and just as regal, was a warm, welcoming figure. She was distant as well, but the distant sort of beauty that enraptured you precisely because you couldn't feel worthy of it. She was a wondrous figure that seemed inhumanly warm and loving, as though she carried in her a love for everyone and everything she saw, no matter how lowly.

"So," Shirou mused, "that's Princess Henrietta."

"Yes," Louise agreed, "that's Princess Henrietta, heir to the throne of Tristain."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Guiche's voice cried from somewhere nearby. "How radiant! How lovely! Oh, the Princess is surely the most beautiful rose in all of Halkeginia!"

He let out a sudden howl, which Shirou took, with a smirk, to be Montmorency stomping on his foot.

"_That's_ Tristain's beloved Princess?" Kirche asked with a low chuckle. Shirou suspected that she had chosen her spot specifically to be close to him. "Ha! I'm _way_ more beautiful than her!"

She turned to Shirou and offered him her best sultry smile — Shirou's heart didn't even skip a beat.

To reiterate, there was no way he could be attracted to a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.

"What do you think, Darling?" Kirche asked. Her words oozed with honey and sex appeal, and she folded her arms under her chest to accentuated her bust — it should have been a tantalizing sight, but the problem remained that Shirou could not ignore the enormous age gap. "Who do you think is more attractive?"

"The Princess," he answered immediately, without hesitation.

"_What_?!" But even though Kirche's face fell disappointedly and her arms sagged back down to her sides, it was Louise who hissed the question at him. "_Shirou_! You better not even _think —_"

"No need to worry so, Master," Shirou assured her calmly. "Though she is indeed beautiful, the Princess is not my type. You have no reason to concern yourself."

Of course not. Shirou didn't have a type — not unless you counted a single woman as his "type." Though his body had often betrayed him around beautiful women when he was younger (hormones were such a _pain_), no other woman he had ever met had resonated with his core, with his soul, with his very _being_, the way Saber had.

Could you call it "having a type" if only one woman fit the criteria?

He expected some kind of rebuke from Louise — Louise was the type, after all, who wouldn't have been satisfied with any answer Shirou had given her regarding the Princess — but she had turned back to the procession and seemed to have quite forgotten all about him. Instead, she was staring at someone, at something among the Princess' entourage.

He followed her gaze to a rather handsome nobleman wearing a wide-brimmed gray hat who rode atop a winged beast with an eagle's head and a lion's body — a griffin. Louise watched him go, enthralled and oblivious to the world around her, a faint blush coloring her cheeks pink.

Ah. Shirou smiled. So his little Master had herself a crush, did she?

How cute.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Louise spent the rest of the day in a sort of daze, and though Shirou had initially been unbothered with it, as he sat cross-legged on his mattress in the corner, he felt the first stirrings of worry.

She seemed to be in a sort of trance; every now and again, she would get up from her bed, pace across the floor for a few minutes, then sit back down and stare off into the distance, clutching her pillow to her chest. He wasn't sure she had even blinked since they had returned to her room.

Definitely worrying.

"Is something the matter, Master?" he asked. "You seem…troubled."

Louise didn't answer. She just continued to stare out into space with a vaguely glazed look in her eyes.

Shirou had heard the expression "getting lost in thought," but he'd never thought it was _literal_.

Rin would've made a joke, here. He was sure of it.

Shirou stood up and took three long strides over to her bed, then spread his fingers and waved his hand in front of Louise's face. Still, no reaction, not even a blink.

"Wow," he imagined Rin saying, "I've heard of getting lost in thought, but I never expected to see someone _literally_ get lost in thought. You meet the weirdest people, Shirou."

"Doesn't that mean that you're weird, too?" he would've replied.

"Oh, I'm immune to all of that," was what she would say. She'd brush it off so easily with a careless wave of her hand. "I grew up with Kirei, remember? You get used to weirdness after that. Stick around that sort of person long enough, and it gets to the point where you don't even realize it anymore."

He chuckled. "But that's the _definition_ of weird."

She flushed, but otherwise, didn't let it get to her.

"Well, if _I'm_ weird," was her rebuttal, "then what does that make _you_?"

Shirou grinned. "I don't count," he said. "You can't call people with Reality Marbles _weird_, Rin. There's no point. It's not an insult or an adjective, it's a statement of fact."

Rin huffed and crossed her arms. "I hate it when you do that, Shirou."

"What? When I'm right?"

"Yes, the rare few times that it's happened."

They shared a laugh, and for a long moment there was just that companionable silence. Then, Rin stopped smiling and gave him a hard, serious look.

"Shirou," she started, "you need to —"

A knock on the door interrupted her — two long knocks, then three short ones — and Rin vanished as Shirou blinked. Next to him, Louise suddenly came to life, too, and snapped out of her trance.

"Someone at the door…?" she muttered.

She stood up and dropped her pillow back into its place on her bed, then walked over to the door and opened it with a twist of the knob. Standing in the doorway was a girl, cloaked in a hooded black robe that disguised her features.

Louise recoiled and gaped. "You are…!"

The figure seized Louise by the shoulders — Shirou tensed and prepared to act — and pressed a finger to its lips beneath the hood.

"Shh!"

The figure looked around cautiously, then hurried into the room and closed the door. From within the folds of the cloak, she — and Shirou could see quite clearly now that it was indeed a woman — produced a small staff and whispered a spell that Shirou didn't recognize.

The walls gleamed for an instant, glimmering as though they had been sprinkled with glitter, then faded back to their normal color.

"A silencing spell?" Louise asked incredulously.

"There might be someone watching," the woman said. "It doesn't hurt to be careful."

She slowly lowered the hood and revealed an elegant, beautiful face framed by short, shoulder-length dark hair and accented by her big blue eyes.

"It has been a while, hasn't it, Louise Francoise?" Princess Henrietta favored Louise with a smile.

Shirou blinked and suddenly found that he didn't know what to do as Louise fell frantically to her knees in a bow.

"Oh Louise!" Princess Henrietta grasped one of Louise's hands and tried to pull her to her feet. "Come now, Louise! There's no need for that!"

"Please, Your Highness," Louise began; she allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, but kept her eyes down and her head bowed. It was a bit strange to watch, such deference from such a spitfire. "This isn't proper, coming to visit such a humble place…"

"Louise Francoise!" Henrietta cupped Louise's chin and lifted her head. "Come now, Louise Francoise! There's no need for such formality. We _are_ friends, are we not?"

"I am not worthy, Your Highness," Louise said in a strained and shaky voice. It was as nervous and uncomfortable as Shirou had ever heard her.

Henrietta scowled. "Stop that! Neither the Cardinal, nor my mother, nor any of those greedy court aristocrats with their fake kindness is here! We are _friends_, Louise Francoise! Can I not talk candidly with my old childhood friend?"

Louise bit her lip. Indecision was written all across her face. "Your Highness…"

"When we were children," Henrietta started, "did we not chase butterflies together in the palace courtyard? We used to get so muddy!"

Louise gave a small, tentative smile. "And Sir La Porte, the chamberlain, scolded us for getting our clothes dirty."

"Yes!" Henrietta exclaimed joyously. She smiled a broad, radiant smile. "Yes, that's right, Louise! We were arguing over those puffy cream cakes, and oh, did we scuffle! Oh, but it was always me who lost those fights, wasn't it? You would take hold of my hair and I would just start crying."

"Not true, Your Highness," Louise's smile became more confident, and Shirou found himself fighting his own grin. "There was at least one occasion…"

"Yes, I remember!" Henrietta laughed a little. "Looking at the two of us then, you might have called that the Siege of Amiens!"

"That was the fight over the dress in Your Highness's room, wasn't it?"

"Yes! We had a fight over who would play the part of the princess in our make believe court! And it was only when I hit you in the stomach that I finally won."

"I fainted right away," Louise agreed, and like that, they both burst out into laughter.

"Oho," Derf muttered, so quietly that Shirou was sure he was the only one that heard, "looks like girly here's friends with the Princess. Ain't that interesting?"

Shirou silently agreed and felt relieved. It seemed that Louise did indeed have someone else besides him. She was not entirely alone and friendless.

A burden that Shirou had not really noticed the past few weeks lightened and disappeared from his shoulders.

"Much better, Louise," Henrietta declared as the laughter died down. "Ah, but those were the times, weren't they?"

"Your Highness," Shirou interrupted, "exactly how is it that you know each other?"

"Oh." Henrietta looked at him as though she had not noticed him until that moment.

"I had the honor of being Her Highness's royal playmate back when we were younger," Louise explained. She turned back to Henrietta. "And I am deeply moved that you would remember me, Your Highness. I had thought you would forget such things…"

Henrietta gave a deep sigh and sat down on the bed. Shirou stepped away and seated himself in one of the chairs around the table, crossing his legs and arms as he leaned back against the back of the chair.

"How could I forget?" she asked quietly. "Those were such fun days, Louise Francoise. We had no worries and no responsibilities. We were completely and utterly free. And now…"

Henrietta smiled sadly. "How I envy you, Louise Francoise, here at this Academy. Such freedom you have."

"Please don't say such things, Your Highness," Louise replied uncomfortably. "You're a royal princess, aren't you? You're the envy of every girl in Tristain."

"And yet, a princess is like a caged bird," Henrietta said. "You can only go where your master pleases, can only do as your master says…"

A long, uncomfortable silence stretched on between them. Shirou thought about saying something, but felt that this was not his conversation, so it wouldn't be right to interrupt. Louise simply seemed to not know what to say.

"I…" Henrietta started at length. "I'm getting married," she revealed.

Another short silence followed.

Finally, Louise said: "Congratulations, Your Highness."

It contained none of the joy or well-wishes that would normally accompany such a statement, perhaps because Louise, as Shirou had, had picked up on the note of melancholy in Henrietta's voice.

Shirou imagined that Louise wasn't surprised — he wasn't either, to be honest. Royalty did not often marry for love, they married for connections. Saber had not been any different — even though she was a woman, she had been masquerading as a man, and so she had needed to marry a woman, Guinevere, to solidify an alliance that would benefit her kingdom.

Henrietta's case was probably similar. He couldn't say with certainty — he was not familiar with the political climate of this place, so any of his guesses would probably be wrong — but it was the nature of being royalty to have to put aside personal considerations for the betterment of the country. Personal whims and desires, wants and needs, love and affection — all of it had to be sacrificed for the greater good of the people.

At least, the good kings and queens did that. The sad part was that the ones who decided to be selfish were often the ones remembered most as unconscionable tyrants and evil kings who destroyed others for their own gain.

Henrietta sighed a deep sigh again and turned to Shirou with something of a solemn expression.

"You are Louise's familiar, am I right?" she asked.

"I am," Shirou said with a short, shallow nod. "Shirou Emiya, Your Highness."

"I see. And you are the one who confronted the thief, Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt, four days ago when she stole the Staff of Destruction from the Academy vaults?"

Shirou eyed her shrewdly. So, she knew about that, did she?

"I am."

"And you are also the one," Henrietta went on, her voice becoming a little harder, "who destroyed Fouquet's golem before she could escape?"

"Mostly," Shirou said. He glanced at Louise and added, "with some assistance from my Master."

Louise swelled a little with pride and a small smile crossed her lips.

"And yet, despite having beaten Fouquet, you could not apprehend him?" There was definitely something sharp in Henrietta's tone, something dangerous and filled with warning, as though the wrong answer would be a mistake.

Shirou felt a glimmer of respect grow for Henrietta, a glimmer that had nothing to do with how grateful he was for her being Louise's friend.

"Fouquet was not overly difficult to defeat," Shirou admitted plainly. "The ally that came to her rescue, however, was a significantly larger threat. If I had tried to pursue and capture them, my Master's life would have been in danger. It was not a risk I could take."

"I see," Henrietta nodded and relaxed a little, apparently satisfied with his answer. "Very well, then, Sir Shirou. You have my thanks for protecting Louise Francoise."

She sighed again and turned away from him and back to Louise. She seemed to be sighing a lot.

"Your Highness?" Louise asked uncertainly.

"Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière," Henrietta began solemnly, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"And the plot thickens," Derf murmured in Shirou's ear.

_So it does_, Shirou agreed silently.

Louse blinked. "U-um, sure."

"You must not speak of this to anyone outside of this room," Henrietta warned. "This is a matter of national security, Louise."

Louise, who appeared taken aback by the sudden seriousness, said, "I promise, Your Highness."

She shot a meaningful glance over at Shirou. He knew at once what she wanted.

"I, as well," Shirou added.

Henrietta glanced at him, but turned immediately back to Louise.

"I am to marry the emperor of Germania," she revealed.

"Germania?!" Louise gasped. "That nation of barbaric upstarts?"

"Yes, Louise," Henrietta replied solemnly. "I'm afraid it is a necessity to solidify our alliance with them. You see, the insurrection in Albion, that group of rebel nobles calling themselves 'Reconquista,' will almost assuredly overthrow their rightful king soon. My advisors have predicted that the Royal Family will not last much more than perhaps another month, if that. At that point, Reconquista will consolidate their assets and turn their attentions to Tristain."

Which could mean only one thing, Shirou thought grimly.

She closed her eyes and paused a moment, then opened them again, and her bright blue irises had turned icy cold. "Within a month, we will be at war with Albion."

Louise gasped and Shirou grimaced, letting out a breath through his nose.

It was as he had guessed, then. Another war. Another pointless conflict for land or for wealth, where a bunch of greedy, powerful men would send soldiers to their deaths under a banner of self-righteousness when all they really wanted was more power.

And Tristain, so much smaller than the other Brimir nations (at least, as of the most recently drawn map in the library), was to be the target.

"War, eh?" Derf mused. "And where does that put you, Partner?"

If he was honest, Shirou didn't know.

"But that's…!"

"That is why we need the treaty with Germania," Henrietta explained. "Alone, we would be outmatched, so we need Germania's help to fend of Albion. For that reason, it was decided by the Cardinal and my mother, the Queen, that I must wed the emperor of Germania in order to seal our alliance."

Louise looked as though she had just been told one of her pets had died. "That's so…"

"Louise," Shirou said, drawing their attention to him, "respect Her Highness's decision. Even though it isn't what she wants for herself, she has decided to sacrifice her own desires in order to save this country. Even if it's sad, even if you feel that she shouldn't have to, respect that it's her decision and that she has made it for a good reason."

Louise grimaced and looked away. "You're right, Shirou," she said in a small voice.

"Ya should pay better attention to Partner, girly," Derf told her. "He's right more often than ya realize."

Henrietta blinked. "Did that sword just talk?"

Louise groaned. "Yes, and he can be really helpful sometimes, but he's got a foul mouth and the absolute _worst_ timing!"

She lanced a glare at Derf, who merely let out a rusty chuckle.

"Yes, well, um. Thank you, Sir Shirou." Henrietta gave him a respectful nod, but pointedly ignored Derf. "But this is why I must ask a favor of you, Louise."

Louise set her mouth into a firm line and looked straight into Henrietta's eyes. "Name it."

And she meant it.

"Reconquista will do whatever they can to undermine and stop this alliance," the Princess began. "They will do whatever it takes to accomplish that, find whatever blackmail or evidence they need to ruin its legitimacy. And I'm afraid that they will not have too much difficulty, should they actually defeat the Royal Family. Should they defeat Albion's Royal Family, they will undoubtedly discover exactly what they need."

Right, standard tactic. Reduce the advantages of your enemy by working at whatever weaknesses you could find; when it came to alliances, all it usually required was one shred of information, no matter how small, blown up and inflated to seem more significant than it was. As long as you sowed distrust, the alliance would fall apart on its own after that.

Shirou had seen it used a couple of times, often to great effect.

"What is it?"

Henrietta sighed. "I was young and foolish and in love…Louise, there is a letter I wrote some time ago. I cannot tell you its contents, but if Reconquista were to find it and send it to the Germanian emperor, I'm afraid that the marriage would fall through and our alliance would be ruined. We would have to stand alone against all of Albion's might."

"A love letter?" Shirou couldn't stop himself from asking.

"A love letter?" Derf parroted. "Oho! So you want us to go and retrieve of love letter to prevent war? Now I _have_ heard it all!"

It wasn't quite as ridiculous as it first sounded. Tristain's alliance with Germania was to be cemented with a marriage, but if the letter were to come to light, if it was revealed that Henrietta was in love with someone not her husband, then the legitimacy of any royal heirs would be in question.

They didn't have paternity tests in this world, so as long as there could be the smallest bit of doubt, it would be enough to throw succession into chaos. And Germania would know that, so if the letter came to light, the only choice was to break off the wedding.

That had been half the problem with Lancelot loving Guinevere, after all, the reason why their adultery was such a big deal. If it was possible, or even worse, probable, that the heir to King Arthur (should a child be born of such a union; Mordred proved that it was _possible_, no matter that it was _unlikely_) was not Arthur's son, then the line of succession would be thrown into disarray — had, in fact, been thrown into disarray by Mordred claiming the right to the throne as Arthur's "son," bastard or not.

Henrietta flushed, but did not back down and nodded. "Exactly that, Sir Shirou. You must understand, if Germania's Imperial family reads that letter, then our efforts to secure an alliance will be for naught. The emperor would assuredly cancel the wedding."

There was a moment's pause as the information sunk in, then Louise squared her shoulders and visibly steeled herself. "Where is this letter, Your Highness?" she demanded strongly.

The Princess closed her eyes and grimaced, looking at once both grateful and dismayed. Shirou did not imagine it was easy for her to send her childhood friend into a warzone.

"In Albion," she said solemnly, "in the care of Prince Wales Tudor of Albion's Royal Family."

She looked at Louise with something unreadable in her expression, something halfway between regret and resignation.

"If I could trust another with this task, I would," Henrietta started, "and it pains me dearly to ask such a cherished friend to undertake a task like this while there is still fighting going on in Albion, especially now that the rebels have all but cornered the Royal Family and control most of the country, but…"

She squared herself. "Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière," she asked formally, "will you accept this request of mine for the good of our country and its people?"

"Of course!" Louise leapt forward and fell to her knees, grasping Henrietta's hands. It looked vaguely reminiscent of a knight kneeling before his queen. "Your Highness, I accept!"

Henrietta sagged with relief and let out a sigh. "Oh, Louise," she said fondly, "you truly are a better friend than I deserve."

Shirou cleared his throat. Both girls jumped, startled, and had apparently forgotten that he was in the room. He reined in the snarky comment he wanted to make about how flowery and poetic the entire scene had been and focused instead on the important part.

"How urgent is this task, Your Highness?" he asked.

Henrietta frowned. "It must be done with the utmost haste. A month is the longest my advisors gave it, but reports say that Prince Wales and the Royal Family have been cornered near Newcastle by the rebels. Barring a miracle, it could be a matter of days."

So, it was pretty urgent, Shirou mused. Time critical, as it were. They would need to make it all the way to Albion, then find the prince, retrieve the letter, and get out, all before the Royal Family was beaten. If they wanted to make it without running into serious complications, then they had to leave soon, and the earliest they could reasonably leave was —

"Then we'll head out tomorrow morning," Louise decided. She turned to him. "Shirou?"

He didn't really like it. He didn't want to jeopardize Louise's life for a letter, especially since it was a _love letter_, but Louise was set on going, and something in Shirou was excited — excited because this would mean saving a country, if only obliquely, and preventing a war. Excited, because by completing this mission, Shirou could save so many lives before they were even truly in danger.

So, he shrugged and told a little white lie. "I have no concerns for this country, Master. My only obligation is to you. If you will set out for Albion tomorrow morning, then I, as your Servant, will follow."

"Thank you, Louise," Henrietta said gratefully, "and thank you, Sir Shirou, for protecting my dearest friend, and for continuing to do so."

"It's not—"

The door suddenly slammed open and a tall woman, whose blonde hair, calm and cool expression, and brilliant eyes looked so heartrendingly familiar that Shirou, for a fraction of a second, thought she was someone else and felt his heart give a traitorous shudder of excitement.

But she was too tall, her hair too short and too flaxen, her eyes too blue, and her body too womanly to be the person Shirou had almost mistaken her for, and he chastised himself for letting his hopes rise.

In one hand, the woman held Guiche de Gramont up by the back collar of his black cloak.

"Agnés!" Henrietta exclaimed, startled.

"Your Highness," the woman said imperiously, "I found _this _—" she gave Guiche a shake as though he were a pile of rubbish rather than a person — "eavesdropping outside the door."

She dropped him to the floor, where he landed with a breathless, "Oof!"

"Guiche!" Louise howled, hackles raised. "You! You…!" She trailed off impotently, mouthing syllables silently as she struggled with words.

"How much did you hear?" Shirou asked shrewdly.

Guiche scrambled to his feet and took a pose, imitation rose in hand.

"When I saw the lovely Princess out in the halls in disguise, I knew I had to investigate!" Guiche declared grandiosely. "So I followed her here and waited to discover why it was she had come!"

He held a hand to his forehead theatrically. "And when I heard about her plight through the keyhole, my heart cried out for my beloved princess, and I decided, therefore, that I must come to her assistance! Have no fear, Your Highness! I, Guiche de Gramont, will secure this letter from the hands of those fiendish Albionians!"

He bowed low from the waist.

There was a moment of silence that followed this declaration. Louise was blinking incredulously, Henrietta looked like she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and the woman, Agnés, hadn't changed her expression at all.

Shirou almost wanted to laugh.

"Should we kill him?" Agnés asked flatly.

Guiche jumped straight, let out a startled squeak, and glanced fearfully at her. Louise looked torn between vindictively satisfied and appalled. Shirou bit his tongue to keep from making another snarky comment.

"Too much trouble," he imagined Rin saying disdainfully. "Disposing of the body is one thing, but blood is so hard to clean up. It's not worth it."

He choked back the laugh that wanted to break free.

For a long moment, Henrietta said nothing. Then, she asked, "Gramont? As in, General Gramont's son?"

"I am, Your Highness," Guiche gave a reverent bow. Shirou had to give him credit; if nothing else, Guiche had a mastery of theatrics.

"Then, Guiche de Gramont, are you saying you wish to go on this mission?"

"It would be a most gracious blessing, Your Highness!"

"I see." Henrietta closed her eyes again and let out a sigh through her nose. "Even though I don't want to send another student away on such a mission as this…Very well, Sir Guiche. As you have inherited your father's bravery and nobility, please accompany Louise Francoise and Sir Shirou on this mission."

"Yes, Your Highness!" Guiche said ecstatically, and then, a moment later, he wobbled and let out a rapturous sigh.

"Her Highness has called my name!" he whispered dreamily.

This time, Shirou didn't bother to stop himself. He snorted.

So then, Guiche would be joining them.

On a mission to Albion.

During a civil war.

...How was this a good idea, again?

"I liked the first idea better," Derf opined. All three girls turned to him with varying looks of unease. Guiche was still living in some kind of fantasy.

"Is that a talking sword?" Agnés asked, sounding far less surprised that Shirou thought she ought to be.

"Oho! So, you noticed! I'm flattered!" Derf called dramatically. "Oh, but talking isn't all I can do, you know! I can stab, I can slice, I can cut, I can do basically anything a regular old sword can do, only ten times cooler! I can even sing and tell dirty jokes! Want to hear —"

Shirou reached over and shoved Derf forcefully back into his sheath.

"He can talk just fine," he told Agnés drily. "The trick is getting him to shut up."

Agnés snorted and both Henrietta and Louise smiled and giggled a little.

Derf popped out of his sheath again. "Hey! I take exception to that!"

Shirou reached over again and shoved him back in. "See what I mean?"

"Must be a riot at parties," Agnés agreed.

Henrietta turned back to Louise and produced a letter from the folds of her cloak. She pressed it into Louise's hands and said, "Please, take this, Louise Francoise. Give this letter to Prince Wales, and he should return the letter I am sending you to retrieve. And this…"

She pulled a large ring off of her right ring finger and gave it to Louise as well.

"Take this, as well. If Prince Wales asks you to prove who you are," Henrietta explained, "then show him this ring, the Water Ruby. It is the symbol of Tristain's royalty, and even if he doubts the seal on that letter, he cannot doubt this."

Louise took the letter and ring and held them tight. She looked down at them for a moment, as though weighing the gravity of what she had just agreed to, and then looked back up at Henrietta, shoulders set and stance firm.

"Please put your mind at ease, Your Highness," she said strongly. "My Servant and I will accomplish this task without fail."

Shirou allowed himself a small, proud smile.

She was growing.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**And so, the beginning of the end.**

**No, not the end of the story, the end of Shirou and Louise's halcyon days. **

**So, we lasted…what, four chapters? We lasted four chapters before stuff started going to hell, or started heading that way, anyway. Things will get much crazier from here on out, and though things will remain relatively light for Shirou and Louise for a little while, darkness is on the horizon, and we're entering the twilight hours.**

**I warned you, didn't I? This is the HF route of Familiar of Zero. We haven't really gotten to the darkest stuff, yet, but nothing is gonna be easy.**

**Anyway, it's been a while since I averaged 100 reviews per chapter, so even though it wouldn't have been strange for me about three years ago, it feels so refreshing to have gotten 300 reviews for the first three chapters. Thanks, everyone.**

**Also, for reference, Shirou's base equipment (the stuff he's always wearing): "Titania" (his clothes; the name is a Work In Progress), Sarras (his sheath), Escalvatine (his sword), and the Shroud of Jeanne d'Arc (that he used to protect Louise in Chapter 2; also called "Shroud of St. Joan"). I thought about making it the Shroud of St. George instead, but considering [spoilers], I thought that might be too convenient for him.**

**For those of you who were keeping up with progress updates on the forum, sorry this came out later than I said. I got distracted a couple of times.**

**Last thing, then. I'm tired right now. Very, very tired. I'm posting this really late (or rather, really early in the morning). So, I'm going to post this, get some sleep, and then try to edit for cohesion and stuff when I get back up.**

**EDIT: Finally got around to editing for a bit of cohesion. I interjected some of Shirou's thoughts between the lines rather than going for one clunky flow.**

**As always, read, review, enjoy.**


	5. The Strongest Steel

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter V: The Strongest Steel  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

It was barely after dawn when Louise, Shirou, and Guiche packed up all of the gear they would need onto their horses. Derflinger was slung over Shirou's back — he was really too long to wear at the hip like a normal sword, and it was more convenient besides — and Louise was dressed in her school uniform but for a pair of riding boots as she saddled up the horse she had been loaned by the school.

Shirou had not taken much time to pack his equipment himself, owing mainly to the fact that he didn't have much to pack in the first place, and had taken instead to observing Guiche, who, a short ways away, was speaking with Montmorency, whose long blond hair hung around her head in loose ringlets rather than her usual tighter, more complex style. Evidently, since it seemed that she had only bothered to put on a pair of shoes and a thin cloak over her nightgown, she had rushed out from her room to make it in time to see Guiche off.

"Must you go?" Montmorency asked. "Guiche, Albion is dangerous!"

"I must." Holding her hands, Guiche said, "This mission is of great importance! The whole of Tristain's future may be riding upon my success in this venture!"

"Tristain's _future_?" Montmorency asked incredulously. "That's…But even so, Guiche! Right now, Albion is in a civil war! Guiche, you could…!"

She trailed off, biting on her bottom lip. She feared for Guiche's life — rightly so, as this would be a dangerous mission indeed — but Shirou had no intention of allowing any of the people he would be protecting to die.

As long as it was within his power to save them, he would.

"It is for the Princess, sweet Montmorency!" Guiche declared fervently. "There is no cause greater than that! I could not refuse a request from our beautiful princess!"

"Couldn't refuse…?"

"Of course not, Montmorency!" Guiche declared grandly. "For the wonderful Princess, for Tristain's grandest rose, no quest is too great, no undertaking too dangerous, no distance too far! To serve Her Highness, the Princess, is the greatest honor I could ask for!"

But Montmorency's mood suddenly changed. The concern evaporated and was replaced by something dark and jealous.

"Oh?" Even from his distance, even without enhancing his eyes, Shirou could see Montmorency's hands tighten around Guiche's. "Are you sure it isn't because the Princess is beautiful, Guiche?"

"Eh…heh-heh…" Guiche tensed and tittered nervously. "Of course not, Montmorency! Why would you think something like that?"

"You're not lying, are you, Guiche?" Montmorency asked dangerously.

"N-no, no, no, of course not!"

"Guiche…"

"I-I promise you, Montmorency, it's not like that!"

He held up his hands in a placating gesture to diffuse her anger, but she appeared to have trouble believing it. It wasn't hard to imagine why; even now, more than a week after that duel, Guiche still had something of a reputation as a playboy. Of course, as far as Shirou could tell, Guiche had remained mostly faithful to Montmorency (though he seemed to have relapsed the night before with Henrietta) — the duel had definitely shaken him.

But, it seemed like Guiche was coming along anyway, even if he "fell off the wagon" (so to speak) every now and again.

Shirou couldn't stop himself from smiling.

"They're cute, don't you think?" Rin's voice asked.

Shirou, who had gotten used to imagining Rin's presence, thought nothing of her sudden appearance in his head.

"They are," he agreed. "It's always nice to remember that I don't have to kill people in order to bring this sort of happiness."

"There is that," Rin giggled. "I think they'll do alright. He's a little wishy-washy right now, but in a few years, he'll be the kind of man she needs him to be. It was a little rough, there, in the beginning, but…You did good, Shirou."

He snorted. "Glad to know you approve."

"Mm," she hummed. He imagined her standing next to him with her hands on her hips, watching as Guiche and Montmorency awkwardly said their goodbyes. She heaved a sigh. "That could have been us, you know."

That startled a laugh out of Shirou. "What?"

"Oh, come on!" the image of her scowling at him, as she had so many times before, popped into his head. "Don't tell me you actually never noticed? I had, like, _the_ biggest crush on you when we were younger!"

"You did?" he asked, bewildered.

"Why did you think I allied with you during the Grail War?" she demanded. "Or saved your life? Or helped you out and taught you what I could and everything else? What, do you think I did that for every random stranger I only knew for two weeks?"

"Well, I mean…" When she said it like _that_, yeah, he could see it, but he'd always thought that she did all of that stuff because, "weren't we friends?"

Rin scoffed.

"Weren't we friends, he says. Ugh!" she blew out another sigh and was silent for a moment, then she chuckled a little. "You really are totally oblivious, you know that?" she asked fondly.

He laughed quietly. "If I wasn't me, who would I be, Rin?"

"You're right about that!" She laughed too. "Don't ever change, Shirou."

"I don't plan on it."

Rin let out another long sigh. "So," she began, "it looks like you're going on another adventure."

"So it does," Shirou agreed.

"Any plans, so far?"

"You mean, other than get there and back with Louise in one piece?"

She snorted. "_Besides_ the obvious, Shirou."

He hummed.

"Well, not really. It shouldn't be too hard, though. As long as I don't run into another Heroic Spirit, I should be able to take care of any threats relatively quickly and easily. Besides, I've done harder missions, right?"

Rin made a funny sound in the back of her throat. "You mean like the war with —"

"Sir Shirou."

Rin vanished again and Shirou blinked back into the real world, where Guiche was waiting. Montmorency had apparently gone back to her room at some point.

"What is it, Guiche?"

"U-um," Guiche fidgeted a little, "I would like to…to make a request."

Louise approached them, leading her horse by its bridle and reins. "What do you want, Guiche?"

Guiche startled. "Oh," he said, "Zer — erm, Louise. I'm sorry," he glanced at Shirou as though afraid he might be attacked if he didn't show proper respect, "I didn't see you there. Forgive me."

"Skip it," Louise said flatly. "The request, Guiche?"

"O-oh, yes. Well, if it's not too much trouble," he glanced at Shirou again nervously, "I'd like to bring my familiar along."

Shirou arched an eyebrow. "Your familiar?"

Louise frowned. "It's a mole, right?" she asked.

Guiche rose up indignantly. "My cute, loveable, adorable Verdandi is not _just_ a mole!" he said angrily. "Any fool with eyes and taste can see that she's the most wonderful, most beautiful — erm…"

He glanced fearfully at Shirou again and trailed off.

"Sorry, Louise," Guiche apologized again meekly. "Yes, she's a mole."

He looked physically pained, as though he were straining to hold in all the praise he wanted to lavish on his familiar and struggling to contain it. Shirou decided to take pity on him.

"Can your familiar keep up?" he asked. Louise shot him a glare that seemed to say, 'don't encourage him!'

"Of course she can!" Guiche declared passionately. He tapped the ground with his foot and a great, big, brown creature roughly the size of a small bear burst from the grass and dirt an instant later. "My Verdandi is the most amazing familiar! She can outpace even the Academy's finest horses!"

He threw his arms around the mole, rubbing his cheek against her cheek, blubbering, "Yes, you can! Yes, you can!"

Shirou thought it was vaguely disturbing. What was even more disturbing was that the mole was rubbing back and making pleased, keening sounds.

"But we're going to Albion!" Louise burst out in protest. "We can't take a creature that moves underground! Albion's in the sky, remember?"

"Oh, but I can't bear to be separated from my dear Verdandi!" Guiche cried. "Oh, it's unthinkable! Just imagining leaving her behind while I go on such a long trip…! The pain! It's agonizing!"

Guiche gave a theatrical sob that didn't seem to sway Louise at all, but Shirou, though he thought it overly dramatic and bordering on pathetic, remembered, unbidden, that moment when he had said goodbye to Saber, when he had stood upon that hill and watched her fade into the sunrise. He remembered how he'd felt then, about how he had felt so empty and alone, filled with only the faint echo of her presence in his memories.

True, Guiche being separated from his mole could not compare to the bond he had shared with Saber (unless, his brain supplied sickeningly, these nobles practiced some _very weird_ fetishes), but even if the bond between Master and Familiar in this world was only a fraction as powerful as his bond with Saber had been, it would still be a powerful one, and it would still be painful to leave one half of that bond behind.

If it were entirely up to him, he would have left Guiche behind. It was probably the better idea, actually. That way, he'd only have to protect Louise, which would make everything so much easier and more convenient. But something inside of him reminded him that he himself had not truly come into his prime, had not truly understood what it was to do the things he had dedicated his life to doing, until he had had to face enemies that could kill him, monsters that could have destroyed him.

Without the Grail War and the hardships therein, Emiya Shirou would never have made it as far as he eventually had.

You did not learn exactly what was necessary to succeed until you had faced the possibility, or even the inevitability, of failure. It was not until you faced defeat that you understood what you needed to become in order to achieve victory.

Yes. Guiche wanted to come on this mission for two main reasons: to prove himself in some way, and because it was a mission for Princess Henrietta. Undoubtedly, Guiche was not considered overly important in the grand scheme — unless he did something drastic and incredible, he would not get great rewards or flowery compliments from the Princess he so coveted. But more than simply earning her favor, he wanted something else, something desperate and sorrowful, the same thing that all men desired.

Guiche wanted glory.

Very well, then. In this instance, while he could be there to save Guiche from whatever enemy they might face, he would show Guiche what was necessary to attain glory. He would allow Guiche a taste of the sacrifice and hardship needed to achieve that distant dream that all men strove towards.

"Louise," he began; both Louise and Guiche froze and turned to look at him, "let him bring his mole. If such separation pains him so, then let him bring his mole and take responsibility."

So he said, but if it came down to it, he wouldn't abandon that mole. Coddling, however, never got anyone anywhere.

Louise frowned and huffed, but finally said, "Fine."

"Oh, Verdandi!" Guiche flung his arms back around the mole. "Did you hear that, Verdandi? You're coming with us!"

Verdandi squealed happily and rubbed her round cheek against Guiche. Guiche, who did not seem overly bothered by the mud and grime that was starting to stain his shirt, rubbed back, laughing, and Shirou, though a bit put off by the sheer peculiarity, found himself strangely warmed by the sheer, pure happiness in every line and curve of Guiche's face.

Louise scowled and purposefully looked away, rummaging through her pockets to pull out the letter Henrietta had given her, folded neatly and unwrinkled, and the silver, blue-jeweled ring, the Water Ruby (and how could you call it a Ruby when the gemstone was blue?). First, she checked to letter for rips and tears, and then, as Shirou watched, she checked the ring for scuffs and scratches.

The moment the blue gem was visible, Verdandi suddenly stopped keening and turned curiously towards Louise, sniffing once, twice, three times.

"Verdandi?"

Verdandi broke free from Guiche and flung herself at Louise, and, as Shirou watched, unsure of what to do, tackled his little Master to the ground.

"Verdandi!"

"Shirou!" Louise shouted, holding the Water Ruby aloft as Verdandi scrambled about and tried to pry it away. "Shirou! Get this thing _off_ of me!"

If he were honest, Shirou didn't really know what to make of it all. A part of him wanted to laugh, and a part of him insisted he help his Master.

"Verdandi!" Guiche cried again. He rushed over to try and tug his mole off of Louise. "No, Verdandi! That is the Princess's ring! You mustn't!"

It was to no avail. Verdandi simply ignored him and went on trying to snatch the Water Ruby from Louise's hands.

"She's not normally like this!" Guiche promised. He shot Shirou a look that was halfway between apologetic and fearful. "It's just that my dear Verdandi does so ever love jewels!"

"Stupid mole!" Louise spat like a furious cat. "This is the ring the Princess gave me! There's no way I could give it to you! GET OFF! _IRRITATING PEST!_"

"How dare you!" Guiche began, outraged. "My cute little Verdandi isn't stupid or a pest, you ignorant — erm, that is to say, don't refer to my beautiful familiar like that, Zer — I mean, Louise, please don't talk to her like that!"

Twice more, Guiche stopped halfway between what he was going to say to glance at Shirou, then tried to rephrase his indignation in a more acceptable way. It was almost amusing, but it was also getting old.

Sighing, Shirou decided to take pity on them and stepped forward. "Hold still for a moment, Mast —"

There was almost no time to react to what came next. The burst of sudden magical energy, the scent of ozone that assaulted Shirou's nose out of nowhere, and the gust of wind that exploded in their direction — they all happened so quickly that they were almost simultaneous, and an ordinary human would not have been able to react in time.

Shirou leapt into motion, picked up Louise, Guiche, and Verdandi, and flung himself out of the way of the spell as it whipped past them, close enough to send the hem of his jacket fluttering. He landed shortly in the grass, feet planted and one leg bent in case he had to dodge again.

"My apologies," a voice called out. "I'm afraid I saw my fiancée being assaulted and I feared the worst. I'm sorry if a frightened you."

Shirou allowed himself to relax and set his three passengers down as he turned to face the voice. It belonged to a rather heroic-looking figure who dropped down out of the sky on a lion with wings and an eagle's head — a griffin — and dismounted gracefully with what was obviously years of practice.

Shirou recognized him immediately.

Not by name, of course, but rather his appearance. The wide-brimmed feathered hat, the long, grayish hair, the lean, muscular figure, and the thin, neatly-trimmed beard and mustache — they all belonged to the man Louise had been mesmerized by the day before, one of Princess Henrietta's retinue.

"S-Sir Wardes!" Louise gasped.

It seemed Louise, however, _did_ know him by name.

Of course, that wasn't the point. He didn't know exactly how powerful that spell was — the system of Dots, Lines, Triangles, and Squares was still a little confusing — and by the looks of it, it had only been blunt force rather than razor sharp blades, but using magic so casually and without a care for the consequences…

Either this person was dangerously careless, or supremely confident in his skill. With mages, the only way to know the difference was to engage them in battle (which definitely wasn't an option here).

Either way —

"Magic shouldn't be used so lightly," Shirou said carefully. "If you had made a single mistake, you could easily have killed my little Master."

"Shirou!" Louise hissed, tugging on his jacket. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"It's alright, Louise," the man, Wardes, assured her easily. "His concern is only natural. It's a familiar's duty to guard his master, after all, even from his master's fiancé."

Wardes smiled. "Ah, but where are my manners?" He swept his hat off and bowed steeply at the waist. "I am Viscount Wardes, captain of the Griffin Knights and Louise's betrothed." He straightened and put his hat back on deftly. "Her Highness, the Princess, worried about sending your group to Albion alone, especially as two of you are students and the other a foreigner. Since an armored retinue would be too conspicuous and would defeat the point besides, I am to accompany you at her request."

"V-V-Viscount W-Wardes," Guiche sputtered incredulously, "and _Louise_?"

"Fiancé?" Shirou glanced back at Louise with a raised eyebrow. She met his gaze, then turned away, face flushed embarrassedly.

"We are promised to each other," Wardes explained simply. "Now, Louise, aren't you going to introduce your companions to me?"

"O-oh!" she squeaked. "F-forgive me, Sir Wardes! Um — this is Guiche de Gramont, a classmate of mine," she gestured to Guiche, "and this is my…my Servant, Shirou Emiya."

"Servant?" Wardes parroted. "Ah. Yes, the Princess told me about this. It's a term for a human familiar, correct?"

"That's correct," Shirou answered shortly.

"I see. Then thank you, Shirou Emiya," Wardes swept into another bow, "for protecting my fiancée. As her familiar, her Servant, you have done your job admirably."

"It's nothing," Shirou assured him. "As a Servant, it was my duty and responsibility to protect my Master. There's no need to thank me for something that is only natural."

"Indeed," Wardes chuckled good-naturedly. His keen, blue-gray eyes glinted with something — perhaps approval? "Like congratulating an eagle for flying or grass for being green, yes?"

Shirou felt his lips pull into a smirk. "Exactly."

For a long moment, there was silence as Wardes eyed him up and down subtly, taking in the cloth armor and the swords — one sheathed on his back and the other at his hip — with nothing more than slow, almost imperceptible movements of the eyes. Shirou felt himself being appraised, the way two warriors did when they met — the single question that all men asked in such a situation: am I stronger than him?

There was no need for Shirou to ask that question about Wardes. No, for something with an inhuman level of strength, capable of going toe to toe with Servants and Dead Apostle Ancestors, a question like that was pointless. From the beginning, humans could not defeat something that was inhuman, not without an extraordinary ability or high class armaments. For someone like Shirou, the only sorts of mages who could threaten him were the highest sort, the kind who did A-Rank magic as easily as breathing. In this world, that meant Square-class mages, this world's versions of Barthomeloi Lorelei.

"Well," Wardes said at last and turned away, "we need to be off. It's two days' travel to La Rochelle by horse, so we must make all haste if we don't want to make it three. Come, my Louise." He held out one hand in offering and patted the rump of his griffin with the other. "You shall ride with me."

But Louise did not immediately reach out for the hand of her fiancé. She turned instead to Shirou, face flushed, and gave him a lost, desperate look, as though searching for approval or begging him to intervene. Even though Shirou did not entirely trust Wardes, however, there was a certain advantage in allowing his decision to carry Louise.

"It's fine, Master," Shirou told her. "In fact, it's better that you ride with him. Should we come across that other Servant again, it will be easier for me to fight if I know the Viscount can carry you to a safe distance on his griffin."

Louise grimaced a little and looked back at Wardes. Her face flushed again and she bit nervously at her bottom lip — it was a war between embarrassment and practicality, and the victor would decide whether or not she could risk making a fool of herself while riding with her fiancé on his griffin.

By the set of her face and the grim, determined line of her mouth, practicality won.

"V-very well!" she said as importantly as she could manage. It was ruined by the violent blush that still stained her cheeks from ear to ear. "Then S-S-S-Sir Wardes! E-escort me!"

Wardes laughed and lifted Louise into his arms, ignoring, or perhaps not noticing, the tiny, embarrassed squeak she let out.

"You haven't changed a bit, my little Louise!"

"V-Viscount!" Louise cried, face aflame. "N-not here! N-not in f-f-front of o-others!"

"Very well," Wardes said reasonably. He set her down astride his griffin and climbed on after her. "Let's make haste, then. La Rochelle awaits."

Shirou allowed himself a small smile and mounted his own horse. As the sun started its slow climb into the sky, Shirou led both his horse and Louise's after Wardes' griffin, and the journey to Albion, and the mission that awaited there, began.

And yet, despite the generally peaceful and carefree air that clung to them, particularly Louise and Wardes, Shirou could not help the odd feeling in his belly — as if his body was reminding him that no mission was easy, that this slow and gentle start was nothing more than the calm before the storm, and a typhoon awaited them.

This time, when Louise squeaked embarrassedly at something Wardes said or did and Wardes let out a loud, cheerful laugh, Shirou didn't smile. He frowned.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was late into the night after two days of travel when they reached the narrow mountain pathway that lead to La Rochelle. On either side, buildings had been carved into the rock to make houses — the work of Square-rank mages, the books had said. La Rochelle was a mountaintop port city because Albion was a country that floated in the air. Thanks to the supply of windstones in the ground, one day, Albion had just lifted up from the rest of the continent and drifted away.

And that was as much as Shirou had read before he'd set that particular book aside. History like that could be interesting, but it hadn't been what he'd been looking for.

"An island in the sky, huh?" Shirou muttered to himself. "Well, I've certainly been to some strange places, but that'll be a first for me."

The moonlight was their only guide as Wardes led the way. They might have made better time if they had continued straight for two days, but when Louise had started to sway atop Wardes' griffin after the first day of travel, Shirou had insisted on taking enough time to rest themselves and their horses. Wardes hadn't exactly been happy about stopping, but had given in when Louise let loose a large, jaw-cracking yawn.

That was why it was dark as they started up the mountain pathway. Because Shirou had insisted on stopping to rest, they had no light to guide them but the moonlight, which cast everything into shades of gray and left long shadows on the rocks around them. Though he knew it would have meant another day of travel, Shirou wished they had stopped for a rest and waited until daylight before traversing the mountain path — in the darkness, the shadows danced with every motion and beneath every cloud that drifted in front of the moon. For someone watching for enemies and ambushes, there were too many to know which were enemies waiting to strike and which were simply tricks of the light.

A mountain pathway had nothing on a sprawling city, of course. During those Dead Apostle hunts Shirou had joined, discerning what shadows were just shadows and what shadows were the Apostle's minions waiting for the opportune moment had been much, much harder in the pitch-black narrow alleyways than here in this mountain pass.

Behind him, Shirou heard the echoing clip-clops of Guiche's horse entering the pathway. Ahead, Wardes' griffin continued at the same pace as when they had begun and seemed no more tired than it had when they left the academy two and a half days prior. Truly, Shirou wondered, was that the difference between a normal animal and a familiar, or were griffins naturally that hardy?

It happened as soon as they were too far in to back out. From the cliffs above, several torches, alight with fire, fell down and landed at their mounts' hooves, hissing like vipers and spitting sparks. Shirou's horse jerked and reared back, letting loose a loud neigh as it bucked and tried to get away from the flames — Shirou himself was nearly unseated and thrown off, but he managed to stay on, gripping tightly to the reins.

In front of him, Wardes' griffin squawked and flared its wings wide, then flapped once, twice, three times to send the torches away. Behind him, there was more neighing and a loud thud of something hitting the ground bodily.

"Wha-what's happening?!" Guiche cried fearfully. His own mount had flung him off.

Arrows shot through the air a moment later, and Shirou unsheathed Derf with a ring of steel as he deflected them, and, with a long sweep of his sword, the ones aimed at Guiche, too. Wardes deflected the arrows aimed at himself and Louise with a small gust of wind with a swish of his wand-sword.

The light from the flames, the difference between the light that painted them as targets and the darkness of the cliffs above, made it impossible to see where the arrows were coming from, and so impossible to see the archers who were firing them. It was a solid tactic that had been performed with practiced efficiency to blind Shirou and the others from their attackers, which could only mean one thing.

"It's an ambush!" Shirou alerted the others.

"It's most likely thieves or bandits!" Wardes called back. His wand-sword glowed and knocked away another wave of arrows.

"Could it be…those rebellious nobles from Albion?" Louise asked over the neighing of the horses.

"Nobles would not use arrows," Wardes answered confidently.

More arrows came and were deflected again. Derf hissed as he cleaved through the air, sending arrows off course, and Wardes' wand-sword flashed. In the intervening moments, Guiche had managed to create a golem that was protecting him with expert, mechanical efficiency and cowered behind it with his hands on his head as its bronze joints creaked.

Shirou frowned.

It depended, of course, on how many archers there were and how many arrows they had between them, but any well-prepared group would have more than enough to last. That meant that they could keep going for as long as they liked — or for as long as it took one of them to get in a lucky shot. It wouldn't take much, just a single moment of inattentiveness, and one of their group (probably Louise, the only one who couldn't defend herself) would be maimed or killed.

So, then, his options. First, he could wait them out in a war of attrition. He himself would be able to mostly defend himself and his reaction time was good enough that most arrows would be useless. It meant that no one would have to die, or more accurately, he wouldn't have to kill anyone. He wouldn't have to stain his hands with yet more blood.

On the other hand, that also meant that Louise would be open and vulnerable. Unable to cast wind spells herself and unable to craft a golem to defend her, it would only take a single mistake from Wardes for her to be seriously injured or even killed, and Shirou didn't know much healing magic, certainly not enough for a serious wound like that. Not only would their mission be sidetracked or even fail, but his little Master might die, and all pragmatism and all his ideals aside, he was beginning to grow attached to her.

Right. That was a bad idea. He wasn't going to be risking Louise.

Option two, he attacked back using his magic, revealed himself as a mage before Wardes and Guiche, and would probably kill every single one of those archers, but Louise would be safe, and so would any others who came through this path in the future. By killing these archers now, he could save others who might otherwise have been injured or killed by them, and all in the process of saving his little Master, too.

It meant staining his hands a little more, but no one in his group would be hurt.

Shirou was only slightly ashamed that it was an easy decision, but he had known from the start that he couldn't save everyone, no matter how hard he tried. Even though he tried anyway, he had never been so ignorant that he thought he would never have to kill a few to save the many.

He centered himself, let out a breath as the hammer in his head cocked back and his Circuits flipped on, and reached into his alien perception, the Unlimited Blade Works.

"Trace —"

But he stopped.

Something large and heavy swooped through the air in the darkness above — Shirou could hear the giant wingbeats and realized suddenly that he knew what creature made them, had seen it before, in fact, silhouetted against the moon on his first night in this world. Up on the cliffs, screams echoed out into the night and the arrows that had before been aimed at them and their horses were suddenly aimed at something else.

A dragon.

A blast of wind magic deflected all the arrows as effortlessly as Wardes had, and after a moment's pause — incanting, Shirou realized, the rider was incanting — a small hurricane swept through the sky above and tore the archers, who screamed all the way, up and away from their perches and into the air.

For a handful of seconds, they just hung there, suspended by the spell that was holding them up, and then, when the spell died, they dropped like stones and tumbled down the sides of the cliffs to land, battered, bruised, and groaning, on the pathway in front of Wardes.

"That was wind magic," Wardes commented unnecessarily.

"But who…?"

A large form swooped down low from above them, and astride the back of the wind dragon were Kirche and a small girl with glasses — she must be Tabitha, since that appeared to be her dragon. Kirche, smiling, gave a large wave as the dragon landed. With a flourish and a flip of her fire-red hair, Kirche dismounted gracefully.

Absently, Shirou sheathed Derflinger.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!"

"Sorry to —?!" Louise sputtered indignantly, hopped down from Wardes' griffin, and marched up to Kirche. "What do you think you're doing here, you redheaded Germanian tramp?!"

"Certainly not helping _you_," Kirche said with a flip of her hair. "I saw you leaving the academy with my darling early this morning and decided I had to follow you and rescue him from your prudish clutches."

She gave Shirou a wave and a sultry smile, tugging the collar of her blouse down a little to reveal a few more inches of brown skin. "Hi, Darling!"

Shirou wasn't even tempted to look anywhere but her eyes and said nothing, giving her only a frown. She pouted and pulled her blouse back into its proper place.

"That girl certainly has it out for you, doesn't she?" Derf mumbled into Shirou's ear.

"Indeed," Shirou replied flatly.

"Anyway," Kirche continued, "I enlisted Tabitha here —" she jerked her thumb at the dragon, where the short, glasses-wearing girl, Tabitha, as Shirou had guessed, glanced up briefly from her book at her name being called — "and followed you all the way out here."

Tabitha gave a silent, tiny, very unenthusiastic wave, which consisted of nothing more than raising her hand, holding it in the air for a second, and then letting it drop. Oddly, she was still in her pajamas. Kirche must've woken her up without giving her a chance to change clothes.

"You…! You…!" Louise raged incoherently.

"Kirche," Shirou began. Louise shot him a venomous look for interrupting her, but he ignored it.

"Yes, Darling?"

"You shouldn't be here." Her face dropped into another pout. "This is a personal request from the Princess. The entire point was to send only a small, fast group that wouldn't receive much attention. Adding you and Tabitha to our group will only make things more complicated and more difficult, and walking around with a dragon will only make us stand out all the more."

With a stern expression, he delivered the final blow. "You should leave. Go back to the academy and forget we were ever here."

"That's right!" Louise jumped in, scowling. "This is a secret mission for the Princess, Zerbst! You're not welcome!"

But Kirche did not seem deterred, nor even bothered, and it rankled Shirou a little that she didn't seem to understand what he'd just said.

No, of course she didn't, Shirou berated himself. She was a schoolgirl, not one of the soldiers he had given orders to during one of his interventions or the Enforcers he had led during some of those Apostle hunts. She didn't truly understand the scope of what was going on, here, and even if she did, her teenage pride and sense of invincibility would keep her from leaving.

He'd been spoiled, Shirou decided. He'd spent so much time over the last few years working with experts and professionals that he wasn't used to dealing with teenagers again.

"Secret mission?" Kirche drawled slowly. "Oh, so you Tristainians are up to something, are you? Well, you should have said so sooner! I can't take part in a secret mission if I don't know that it exists!"

_Well_, Shirou thought sardonically, _can't argue with that logic._

Derf gave a low chuckle.

Louise fumed again. "You —!"

"Anyway," Kirche cut her off, "you should be thanking me. See those guys?"

She pointed to the archers, who Guiche had gone to interrogate at some point. They didn't seem to be in any condition to resist.

"I saved you from their ambush, didn't I? I don't think a little gratitude is out of the question."

Louise scowled and glared at her as though hoping she would spontaneously burst into flames, but said nothing.

"And I didn't come here to help you," Kirche added. She walked briskly past Louise, who eyed her furiously all the while, pausing only to give a salacious and suggestive wink at Wardes (who recoiled with a frown), and strode right up to Shirou and grabbed his hand. "I came to see my beloved, my darling. I was so worried when I woke up to find you gone. I thought maybe you'd left! Oh! Or maybe Louise was dragging you off and forcing you into marriage! Just the thought that you could be bleeding out somewhere, or worse, that you might be making Louise a woman instead of me! It tore me apart! Oh, I was so worried! Can't you feel how fast my heart is beating?"

She moved his hand as though to rest it over her heart, but with that saucy, sultry smile of hers, pulled it a little too far down to rest atop her left breast. The fabric of her shirt had barely touched his fingertips before he'd pulled away, scowling at her, and she stumbled backwards and fell from the sudden motion.

She looked up at him, skirt askew and bunched up so high that her underwear was almost visible, and pouted. "Oh, my beloved darling has rejected me again. I think I might just cry!"

"ZERBST!"

Louise's voice echoed off the cliffs around them, high and shrill, as she started towards Kirche with her hackles raised like an angry cat. Shirou paid it no mind — Louise being angry wasn't especially new or concerning — and turned his focus instead to the girl on the ground, who, despite her words, did not look anywhere near the point of crying.

But it could not continue. No, even beyond the fact that it was disturbing to watch a teenage girl some forty or fifty years his junior throw herself at him, it was tiresome and a little annoying to have to reject her advances every time she came within earshot. The old Shirou, as he had with Sakura, would have simply pretended to be oblivious

This, however, was not the old Shirou, nor was Kirche as subtle and as deeply infatuated as Sakura had been. There could be no pretending not to notice, not when she was so forward and blunt and not when the constant bids for his attention could be so disruptive. He would have to be direct with his rejection, blunt and truthful. As long as she thought she had a chance, she wouldn't stop.

Besides, there was one even more important fact. The old Shirou had not yet met Saber, had not yet fallen in love himself; the Shirou of the now _had_. He had met Saber, had fallen in love with her, and had carried her image, her memory, and his love for her within him for nearly fifty years.

Compared to that, Kirche couldn't even hope to compete.

"Even if my heart didn't belong to another, I could never date someone so young," Shirou told Kirche solemnly. "Your efforts are wasted on me. You should save yourself and invest your love in someone who can love you back."

She would be better off that way. A lifetime of chasing after him would only end in heartbreak — heartbreak because she could not follow him, heartbreak because she could not understand him, heartbreak because she was not strong enough to take up his cross.

Yes. With his power, Shirou had granted many people salvation and had performed many miracles. When people spoke of him and the things he had done, his name was always half-whispered and uttered reverently. It was the nature of being a hero — to be worshipped as something alien, inhuman, and godly.

It certainly seemed a glamorous sort of reward from the outside. That was how Heroic Spirits were born, after all: the people saw someone do incredible things and worshipped them, were inspired by their deeds and legends. Other heroes would aspire to do the things that so many heroes had done before and etch their names into history.

What few people understood was what it took to achieve those deeds, what was lost to make those legends. Salvation could only be achieved through sacrifice, and miracles were born out of people's misery. Always, you had to carry with you the knowledge that you could not save everyone, that you inevitably had to take lives and choose someone over another, that being needed meant that people still suffered.

Sacrifice one to save ten. Sacrifice ten to save a hundred. Sacrifice a hundred to save a thousand. No matter how hard he tried, Shirou would never be able to save everyone. Someone would always die, and his efforts would never truly be enough. And yet, he would continue to try. He would strive for that Utopia, even knowing that it was an impossible dream.

Could this girl live with that? Could she understand what it meant to seek a dream, knowing it could never come true, and to seek it anyways?

No. It was not something regular people could do. Always, though they might hold onto that dream deep within their hearts, an ordinary person would abandon the impossible for what they could achieve with their own two hands. It was only the heroes, like King Arthur, like Cúchulainn, like Alexander the Great, who strove for their impossible dreams without wavering.

A strange look crossed Kirche's face, something resembling determination, and she opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Louise, who had stomped over, "Zerbst, you…! You…!"

Before she could start, however, Guiche jogged back from the archers he had been interrogating and called out for Wardes.

"Viscount!" Guiche said urgently. "Viscount!"

Louise bit back her tirade and turned instead to Guiche. "What?!"

Guiche flinched as though slapped and cast a fearful look first at Shirou, then again at Wardes, and seemed suddenly afraid to say anything. Shirou thought that it was really getting out of hand.

"Speak," Wardes commanded.

"O-oh!" Guiche gave a little jump. "Um, yes. That is, they're just robbers. That's all. They weren't looking for us, specifically, they were just looking to get whatever they could from whoever came along the road."

In other words, their secret mission was still a secret. Well, as much as it could be, anyway, with Kirche and Tabitha standing right there.

Wardes frowned. "I see." He hummed. "Leave them, then. We would probably be doing everyone a favor by executing them, and at the very least, we should turn them in. However, I don't want to expose my fiancée —"

"Fiancée?!" Kirche parroted disbelievingly. "You mean _Louise_?"

"— to such violence and we have no time to escort them all to the proper authorities," Wardes continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Therefore, we'll leave them here and inform the authorities at the earliest opportunity."

He turned to Louise and held out a hand in offering. "Come, my little Louise."

Louise flushed embarrassedly at the way he'd called to her, but didn't protest or otherwise comment on it, and with one last glare at Kirche, she turned and stomped back to Wardes, who took her hand and helped her back up onto his griffin. He settled her in front of him and reached over her shoulders to grasp at the fine leather reins, and then he looked back at Shirou and Guiche, who still hadn't gotten back onto his horse.

"We'll spend the night in La Rochelle," Wardes announced. "In the morning, we'll take the first ship to Albion."

He dug his heels into his griffin's side a little and the beast started forward again with a great squawk, lion's tail swishing behind it. Shirou glanced back at Kirche, who looked like she very dearly wanted to climb onto his horse with him, and dug his heels into his steed's side a little before she could attempt to wiggle onto the saddle behind him. With a chuff, the horse beneath him started after Wardes' griffin, and Kirche was forced to share with Tabitha again.

Shirou imagined they must have looked very strange — two men riding horses, one man riding a griffin with a petite girl, and two girls riding a dragon, all heading in the same direction. It sounded kind of like the beginning to a bad joke.

"You're not gonna force them girlies to go home?" Derf asked quietly.

Shirou hummed. "There's no point. The smaller one, Tabitha, would probably listen, but Kirche's the type who'll be more motivated the more you try to stop her. It's frustrating, but there's nothing I can do."

"Oho?" Derf chuckled again lowly. "The great and mighty Shirou Emiya can face down Heroic Spirits without flinching, but a pair of teenage girls can make him surrender without a fight?"

"Exactly," Shirou replied to the joke seriously. "Teenagers don't listen, no matter what you say. If they want to do something, then there's nothing you can do to stop them from doing it. One way or another, they'll get what they want — the creative ones, anyway."

He paused for a moment and glanced back at Kirche, who perked up and waved cheerily when she noticed him looking.

"Even if I took her back to the academy and locked her in her room, she'd still break out and follow us," Shirou went on. "It's better to just let her come along now so that I know exactly where she is and can keep an eye on her. It'll be easier if I have to rescue her if I don't have to travel halfway across the continent to do so."

"Guess you're right," Derf conceded. "Of course, I suppose it doesn't have to do anything with the fact that that one girl is practically throwing herself at ya, does it?"

"You're right. It doesn't."

Shirou regretted the forcefulness in those words almost the moment they left his mouth. He sighed.

"I'm sixty-five years old, Derf," he explained. "Ignoring the fact that I already have a woman who holds my heart, there's almost fifty years' difference between Kirche and I. How could I fall in love with a girl who's less than a third my age?"

Derf's answer was surprisingly solemn. "You'd be surprised. It might not be too common nowadays, but back in Brimir's time, it wasn't that strange for elves to fall in love with humans and vice versa. And elves live a _really long_ time. Age doesn't mean you can only love someone as old and experienced as you are, it just means you have a better idea of what you want."

Shirou allowed himself a small, ironic smile. "What I want hasn't changed since I was seventeen, Derf. And Kirche isn't her."

Derf said nothing, and after a long moment of silence, slid quietly back into his sheath. Shirou was somewhat grateful — he hadn't really wanted to continue that line of conversation.

It was only a short while later, after about twenty more minutes of riding, when their strange procession crested the slope and looked out at the city below. Like a thousand dazzling diamonds, the buildings of La Rochelle glowed.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Wardes led them to the fanciest hotel in the city, a place called "The Goddess's Temple," which was possibly the most opulent building Shirou had yet seen. Everything was carved of shining marble, and everything, including the floor, was so perfectly clean that Shirou could have used them for a mirror.

The moment all their luggage had been carried inside (and dropped like trash unceremoniously on the floor near the table they wound up claiming), Wardes had turned around and declared he was going to the pier to see when the next ship was leaving while they waited for their food.

The rest of them relaxed into their chairs, though Shirou found it not quite as easy as Guiche and the girls did — riding a horse was _hard_. He was sore in places he hadn't known he had before, especially around his hips and his other lower extremities.

Riding for three hours to and from the capital was much, much different than riding almost nonstop for two and a half days.

Shirou sighed and got as comfortable as he could in his chair, all aches considered. Beside him, Guiche, whose head was pressed against the table, gave a groan.

"I'm tired," he complained, "and hungry. How long must we wait for the food?"

Shirou grimaced as his own stomach rumbled.

He'd brought it up during the trip, about how they should've taken time out to stop to eat instead of just traveling straight through the day. Wardes had insisted on just continuing straight on through, and since Louise hadn't come to his defense and Guiche had, in a moment of rare bravery, agreed with Wardes, Shirou had been outvoted.

He could have forced it if he'd wanted to, he supposed, but since neither Guiche nor Louise had seemed bothered at all, he'd let it drop.

Undoubtedly, Guiche was regretting his decision, now.

"Shut up, Guiche," Louise ordered tiredly. It was muffled because she was resting her head in her arms with her eyes nestled in the crook of one elbow. "We're all tired, we're all hungry."

"You need to man up, Guiche," Kirche said with a smile. She slid a sultry glance at Shirou, who just barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "You need to be more like my darling. He hasn't complained one bit! Why, I bet he's not even hungry!"

And, like a peal of thunder, a loud groan split the air as though to punctuate her remark and stopped whatever else she might have said. Shirou felt his cheeks flush and coughed embarrassedly into one hand.

Guiche, who had been startled by the loud noise, was looking at him bewilderedly. Kirche, with her mouth hanging open, seemed stuck between surprise, dismay, and some strange sort of pride. Tabitha continued reading as though nothing had happened, although the slight raising of her eyebrows gave her away.

Louise, who had not reacted immediately, lifted her head and favored Shirou with a tired, but wry smile.

"Hunger is the enemy?" she offered.

Shirou felt his lips twitch and tried his best to fight off the grin. "Exactly so."

The click of leather boots along the marble floor announced Wardes' return a scant moment later, and as he sank into an empty chair with a slight sigh, he said to them, "The ship to Albion leaves the day after tomorrow."

Louise's brow furrowed. "But…this is such an important mission…"

"Why isn't there a ship to Albion tomorrow?" Kirche asked. She fluttered her eyelashes. "I mean, I've never been to Albion, so I don't understand. Could you…explain it to me?"

Wardes frowned at her and looked like he knew exactly what her game was, but answered anyway: "If the moons are overlapping tomorrow, then Albion will be closest to La Rochelle. If so, then no captain would risk his ship during an eclipse."

He said nothing more, like that answer explained everything, but Shirou didn't really get it — eclipses and solar flares could mess with tides and magnetic fields, so modern electrical appliances might malfunction somewhat, but with magic, how did that mean anything to a flying ship?

Instead of explaining more, Wardes set out three keys.

"We'll retire for the night," he informed them; it sounded more like an order. "Miss Tabitha and Miss Kirche will take one room and Mister Guiche and Sir Shirou will take the other." Shirou felt his eyebrow begin to raise as he realized what that implied. "As we are engaged, Louise and I will obviously share the third room."

Louise rocketed up in her chair, back ramrod straight as Guiche sputtered and Kirche gaped at him. Tabitha's only response was to pause just slightly before turning the page of her book.

"Sir Wardes!" Louise squeaked, face flushed. "B-but we're not even m-married!"

But Wardes shook his head. "We're engaged, so it's fine. Besides, who better to look out for you than your fiancé?"

Louise floundered and her mouth flapped wordlessly. She looked as though she were trying to find the right words, but Shirou chose that moment to jump in.

After all, he had something to say about this, too.

"Sir Wardes," all attention turned to Shirou, "how much do you know about the night Fouquet robbed the academy?"

"I read the report the Magic Academy sent to Her Highness," Wardes answered, looking like he wasn't quite sure where this was going, "so everything, including my little Louise's testimony."

Louise flushed again at the apparent pet name, but Shirou pounced.

"So let me see if I understand your proposal, then," he said as casually as he could manage; he distinctly ignored a giggle in his head that sounded like Rin. "You want my Master to stay the night with you, away from me, when there's an enemy walking around whose allegiance appears aligned with an anti-Tristainian faction who has no problem with targeting a school full of innocent children?"

Wardes adopted an appearance reminiscent of a bird whose feathers had been ruffled. "I don't see what —"

"Allow me to clarify," Shirou cut him off; it was harder to ignore the giggle that had erupted into a cackle. "This enemy, a powerful being who could very well be capable of enduring even a Square-level spell, who is capable of attacking us from range with sustained cannon fire, who is essentially a god in human flesh, would have no compunctions with crushing you and Louise like bugs under her boot. Of the six of us, I'm the only one who could conceivably fight her, and Louise, the Master I am sworn to protect, holds the letter and the ring we are supposed to deliver to Prince Wales."

He ignored the sharp gasp from Kirche and Guiche's very faint and very weak "blasphemy," as well as the fact that he had mentioned critical mission details to those who weren't supposed to be on the mission (since they were coming along anyway, there wasn't much reason to hide it anymore), and focused solely on Wardes, who looked like he'd swallowed something sour.

"While this enemy is on the loose and while Louise carries mission-critical items, you want me to sleep in a separate room from her when I am the only one who can defend her?"

Wardes stood suddenly and snarled furiously, but Shirou merely regarded him with a calm, cool stare. Wardes may have been the nominal leader of this mission, Wardes may have better understood the climate of this world — political and literal — but Shirou had not strode across countless battlefields, had not fought inhuman monsters like Dead Apostle Ancestors, had not saved and sacrificed countless lives for the sake of his ideals, only to risk something so important, to risk his _Master_, because a nobleman wanted to cuddle up with his fiancée before the wedding.

"Fine!" Wardes spat. Guiche gasped and Kirche gaped, Tabitha had stopped reading her book, and Louise looked stricken, but Shirou didn't so much as flinch. Wardes grimaced and breathed in deep through his nose.

"Fine," he said again, much more calmly. "I will concede the issue this night. Shirou and Louise will room together, Kirche and Tabitha will take the other, and Guiche and I shall take the third."

Shirou refused to allow himself to smile. Success.

"However," Wardes stressed the word, "tomorrow, Sir Shirou, I demand a duel to rectify this slight to my honor. On the outcome of this duel, I will wager my right to room with Louise at any point on the rest of this mission. Should you win, I will not bring this issue to light again in your presence, but should I win, you will not contradict me should I make a decision such as that again. Do you agree to these terms?"

Shirou held Wardes' gaze for a moment longer, but Wardes showed no fear or indecision, even knowing, as he had to know, exactly what he would face in a duel like that. There was really nothing for Wardes to gain, only lose — was he that confident in his skills that he would challenge someone like Shirou, someone who was vastly stronger and more experienced, or was his honor that deeply wounded that he could not let it pass, even knowing that he couldn't win?

"I'll accept," Shirou said simply. It was the pragmatic choice, really. "Tomorrow, after breakfast but before lunch. You choose the place."

Wardes nodded with a grim satisfaction, then spun around, and with a flourish of his robes, walked away.

"Ah — w-wait!" Guiche cried. "S-Sir Wardes! You'll miss…!"

Wardes turned up the stairs and was gone.

"…dinner."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The room Shirou shared with Louise was one of the best in the hotel — no doubt, Wardes had intended to share it with Louise, as there was only a single large, four-poster bed with lacy drapes hanging from the top and a large bottle of wine had awaited them when they came in.

Shirou, however, had not intended to stay in the same bed with Louise, and he had been perfectly prepared to sleep in the floor in the corner, but Louise had insisted that he sleep more comfortably. They had ended up in a compromise and had asked the hotel staff to bring in another bed (and Shirou had watched from the corner of his eyes as Louise quietly handed off a few gold coins to the movers as thanks).

So, about an hour after eating, the two of them had settled into bed quietly and bade each other goodnight (Shirou, who had done it just about every night since the duel with Guiche, was pleasantly surprised when Louise had responded in kind). Derf, who had been surprisingly quite, was propped up by the headboard of Shirou's bed.

Stretched out across the mattress, Shirou took in a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes.

"…Shirou?"

But Louise's voice, quiet and tentative, broke the silence.

"Yes, Louise?" he asked softly.

For a moment, she didn't answer, and he thought perhaps she might have fallen asleep, but then, hesitantly, she said, "It was arranged, you know."

He sat up halfway and turned over to his side. Louise's burgundy eyes stared back at him.

"Your marriage to Wardes?"

In the dark, he watched her nod.

"Our parents decided it," she told him, "back when we were younger. Back then, I…couldn't cast magic, no matter how hard I tried. Everyone compared me to my older sisters, Cattleya and Éléonore, so…"

She fell quiet for a moment.

"My family's a very important noble family," she explained. "I'm the youngest daughter, so since I'm not likely to inherit, I either have to make a name for myself as a mage or marry into a good noble family."

"And so, Wardes," Shirou concluded. She nodded again. "Do you _want_ to marry him?"

For a long moment, she didn't say anything, and if her eyes weren't wide open and she wasn't biting her lip uncertainly, he might have thought she had fallen asleep before she could answer.

"I," she started slowly, "I don't know." She looked at him again. "I don't dislike Sir Wardes, but…I wanted to become a great mage, first. I wanted to…to make a name for myself, to do something great and amazing, something that everyone would recognize me for, just like my mother. And I just…"

"You haven't done that, yet," he finished for her.

"I don't want to settle down and be someone's wife, yet," she agreed. "One day, when I'm older and when I've made it that far, yes. Yes, I want to get married and have children and everything, but not yet. I haven't done everything I want to do, yet."

She paused again.

"Sir Wardes asked me to marry him after this mission is over."

Shirou raised an eyebrow. She flushed.

"What should I do?"

He shrugged, as much as one can shrug when situated as he was. "If you're not ready to marry him, don't marry him," he told her. "You're a Void Mage, Louise. I am your Servant. Inevitably, everything is your decision, and I can do nothing but follow it."

Her brow knitted together and she frowned. It probably wasn't the answer she'd been looking for.

"However," Shirou added, "the fact that you summoned me, of all people, means that the events to come are trying and full of hardships. If you marry Wardes, then you may well avoid those troubles, but if they find you anyway, do you think you could face them as Wardes' wife instead of as a formidable Void Mage? More importantly, do you think you could be happy if you abandoned all your other ambitions for the sake of being Wardes' wife?"

For a long moment, she didn't say anything at all, she just lay there thinking deeply about what he said. He wondered if it was really such a hard decision that she would be so uncertain. He wondered if, perhaps, she actually loved Wardes, or was at least infatuated with him. Had she not been out of sorts for nearly the entire day after Wardes had escorted the Princess to the academy?

Maybe she _did_ love Wardes.

Then, with a little smile, she turned away and onto her back.

"I've decided," she declared strongly. "I'm not going to accept! Maybe someday, I'll marry Wardes, but before then, I'm going to become the best mage possible and earn the respect of everyone in Tristain! Shirou, as my Servant, will you follow me?"

Shirou gave her his own little smile and turned back onto his back. "Of course, Master."

Louise reoriented herself and turned over onto her other side to go to sleep, so Shirou closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. A few hours of sleep would definitely be welcome to his sore hips and ass.

He _had_ to get a better mount. At the very least, if he couldn't, he needed to get comfortable with riding a horse, because getting sore whenever they traveled wasn't an option.

Well. Either way, sore or not, he would be dueling Wardes tomorrow. How should he handle it?

No matter what, he couldn't afford to seriously injure Wardes, so he'd have to hold back enough not to do any real damage. At his level, it wasn't a matter of what weapon he used, but rather how much he regulated his strength and speed — choosing Balmung to fight Guiche had been less about weapon power and more about not using a weapon whose effects as a Noble Phantasm he might activate if something pressed him more than he expected.

With Wardes, it wouldn't be so different, with the exception of the fact that he didn't need to pull out a new sword when he could just use Derf. If he was careful, used Derf's dull side, and brought his swing to a virtual stop right before hitting Wardes, the damage would be minor — bruises at worst.

Right. That was the plan then.

Shirou relaxed and let out a slow sigh. Everything else could wait until morning. For now, sleep.

Louise broke the silence.

"Thank you, Shirou," she mumbled quietly.

Shirou smiled. With a flick of his wrist, he set up a very basic bounded field that Rin had taught him to alert him to intruders. Odds were, he'd notice the presence of an enemy Servant before the ward was ever tripped, but it never hurt to be too careful.

"You're welcome, Louise."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"The hotel used to be a castle meant for repelling Albion invaders. This parade ground, though it would have also been used in celebrations and for practicing, would have been a battlefield. Beneath our feet, this ground has undoubtedly tasted the blood of many unfortunate soldiers who gave their lives for Tristain."

Wardes gave Shirou a small smirk. "A fitting place for a duel, no?"

Shirou eyed the debris scattered hither thither, the crates and empty wine and beer barrels, and though it was difficult to imagine that such an abandoned and ill-kept place once held banners and flags bearing the royal image, felt that it was indeed a proper place. Where better to understand the gravity of combat than in a place where so many had died fighting?

"Indeed," he acknowledged.

Over on the edge of the area and well away from where the action would be taking place, standing as their witness, Louise looked on anxiously. She seemed as though she wanted to cheer for one of them but couldn't decide who, or perhaps she could and didn't want to offend the other. Next to her, Guiche, Kirche, and Tabitha had all come to watch. Tabitha had even set aside her book and was staring at him and Wardes unblinkingly.

"Back in the reign of Phillip III, this was also a place for Nobles to conduct duels, much like we are now," Wardes continued. "Back in that time, when kings still had the right to accept and participate in duels, back when the Nobles were truly noble, when they risked their lives for fame and honor…but that is a time long past. Today, duels are fought over petty things and for petty reasons, such as women or minor insults."

Wardes drew his wand-sword and held it lightly in an almost rapier-like style.

"I'm afraid I cannot promise to hold back," Wardes explained. "With my honor at stake, and with the terms of our wager, my pride would accept nothing less than facing you at my very best."

"I understand," Shirou said solemnly. He drew Derflinger with a loud ring of steel. "Even I have that wretched thing called pride."

He flipped Derf over so that the broader blunt side faced away from his body, where the sharp edge would normally go.

"However," Shirou went on, "I'm afraid I must promise the opposite, Sir Wardes. Because my Master is fond of you and because it would be pointless to maim or kill you, I shall hold back from doing any serious damage as best as I am able."

Wardes frowned. "Even now, you would mock me?"

"Not at all," Shirou answered easily. "It's simply pragmatism. If I fought you with all I am, neither you nor my Master would survive, and if I did not take care to keep from doing too much damage, then I might kill you, in which case both my Master and the Princess would be cross with me."

Wardes still frowned and hefted that peculiar-looking wand-sword that resembled more the dulled and round-tipped fencing foil than a real sword. Ten meters — 32.8084 feet — still separated them.

Then Wardes' legs tensed and, more briskly than even the best Olympian athlete, he dashed forward and closed the distance with incredible speed. To Shirou, however, he was still moving slow — too slow and too sluggish to take advantage of the momentary thrill of surprise that shot through Shirou's belly and brain.

With a simple flick of his wrist, Derflinger deflected Wardes' stab up and away while Shirou reached out with his free hand and, gently enough not to do any serious damage, pushed Wardes away with his open palm.

Even despite his taking it easy, Shirou's push still sent Wardes flying backwards as his feet skidded along the ground. For a moment, Wardes did not move or attack again.

Shirou frowned.

The simple fact of the matter was, ordinary humans of this day and age, even in this strange world, could not naturally reach even half of E-Rank on the scale. In Shirou's world, not even with Reinforcement.

Despite that, Shirou had once before seen a modern human with the capability to physically match blows with a Servant. Yes — despite the fact that Kuzuki Souichirou had not even been a mage, he had been able to move with the speed of a Servant and hit with the strength of one.

How? By having a magus from the Age of Gods use magic to reinforce his body and fists.

That he hadn't considered it, that he hadn't realized that this world, stuck as it was in a pseudo Age of Gods, would have mages capable of similar abilities was a failing of his that he would have to work on.

Even still, Shirou was faster and his reflexes greater, made only better by the Gandalfr class abilities. An army of swordsmen coming at him so quickly might prove a problem, but against a single swordsman, the only thing that might have doomed him was the surprise.

And when you faced monstrosities who fought on a level well beyond humans, surprise was the first thing you learned to overcome, or else you died.

Wardes came at him again with a flurry of attacks, each aimed at a critical target on the body — groin, hand, jugular, eyes, temples, stomach, heart, all the targets swordsmen were taught to aim at — but Shirou deflected and parried them all with ease.

Wardes was good, but Saber was so much better that it wasn't any comparison.

He considered reaching in and pushing Wardes away again, but he admitted to being curious about how good Wardes was as a mage, and if he kept pushing Wardes away, Wardes might think he was pressed or nervous about fighting up close. No, the better idea was to let Wardes struggle for a little bit to get in a hit at close range, then come to the conclusion it was pointless himself.

Shirou had barely decided on it when Wardes seemed to understand that he was outmatched as a swordsman and flung himself back and away, panting only slightly.

"I see," Wardes said. "Yes, the Gandalfr's legendary speed and agility are surely not exaggerated. I'm not fast enough to defeat you with a sword."

He hefted his sword again. "Very well, then. I am Viscount Jean-Jacques de Wardes, Wardes the Lightning. I am called that because my attacks are fast and require only short incantations…and also because —"

He thrust the wand-sword forward.

"— I have mastered the Triangle Wind Magic, Lightning!"

Shirou understood the implications immediately, before the magic was even cast, and understood what it meant: lightning, like all electricity, sought out the nearest conductor to hit and ground it. Any conductor would do, but stronger conductors, like metals and water, would be hit harder and carry the charge better.

Humans, like Shirou, were about seventy percent water.

The moment Shirou understood that — shortly after Wardes' words met his ears — he kicked off the ground, destroying the scuffed marble in the process, and rocketed toward Wardes before the spell could be completed.

But Wardes had predicted his reaction, and two spells leapt from the tip of his wand-sword almost at the same instant Shirou had started moving.

The first spell was only blunt force wind, but it propelled the second spell, a razor-sharp blade of air, much faster than it would have gone on its own, and Shirou was forced to stop and cleave it in half before it reached him.

The sheer force of the swing, with nothing held back, tore apart the wind blade like it was paper.

But it was only a distraction, and Shirou knew it as he felt more magical energy build up in Wardes like a fountain. The time it took for him to deal with the blade of wind was enough time for Wardes to finish a third spell, and a flash of blue lightning leapt from the tip of the wand-sword towards Shirou, who held Derf in front of him to intercept the bolt before he'd even realized that his arm had moved.

He expected to be jolted by the electricity as it flowed down the steel sword and into his arm, then up his arm and through his body before it exited through his feet into the ground, but the flash of blue hit Derflinger, engulfed the entire blade, and…disappeared. There was no sting of electrocution that numbed his fingers and set his skin ablaze, no jolt that raced through his chest and stopped his heart, no hot-cold stab of pain that sent his muscles seizing.

The spell simply hit Derflinger and was gone.

Wardes looked as surprised as Shirou felt.

"Ah!" Derf declared brightly. "That was pretty shocking, wasn't it? Who knew I could absorb spells?"

_Would've been nice to know yesterday, Derf_, Shirou thought.

"Her Highness said it was a talking sword," Wardes mumbled faintly, "but she never mentioned that it could absorb magic…"

Shirou frowned and turned himself back to the duel. "That spell was a finishing move, wasn't it?"

"Ah." Wardes focused back on the duel as well and his face became serious again. "Yes. Lightning spells are generally high-level magic that is meant to defeat the enemy decisively. Whenever I used it before, it was always an attack that finished the fight. I warned you, Sir Shirou, that I wouldn't hold back."

"I see." Shirou considered it. Wardes, it seemed, was at least a Triangle mage, and unlike Fouquet, whose golem had been more bark than bite, Wardes' magic was potent and dangerous, and Wardes had just tried to hit him with a finishing move, magic designed to end the battle.

Given that it was a lightning spell, Shirou was more inclined to believe that its usage was often fatal. He was also inclined that a spell of that level might just have been enough to endanger his life, or even kill him.

Shirou's body was hardier than an ordinary person, but he was still human.

If Wardes was going to take it that seriously, seriously enough to use a spell that might have killed him…well. He could only respond in kind, couldn't he?

But what should he…?

Ah. That would work.

Shirou stepped into a stance and made sure that Derf's dull side was still positioned so that the attack would be dulled and not sharp.

"Then if you attacked with such a spell, I will show you something comparable," Shirou said solemnly. "I promise you, I won't kill you. With this, however, I will show you the gulf that exists between you and I…between you and the enemy that might attack us during our mission."

He rocketed forward again, too fast for Wardes to stop, too fast for Wardes to cast a spell, and stopped once he was in range. The technique he had in mind was not something he could have replicated with Derflinger — in the first place, even Saber wasn't good enough to do it, and she was still a better swordsman than him — and was only useable if he had Traced the appropriate sword, the Monohoshizao, but with sheer speed, it would be visually similar and just as striking.

A facsimile, a fake that would look almost identical to the untrained eye — that was all he intended to do. But as he tensed his muscles, everything changed. His legs moved into position almost on instinct, and his arms carried through with a technique that he had not known before, that he could not have hoped to do before, that Shirou, as a swordsman, could never have hoped to replicate.

The runes on the back of his hand glowed, and so swiftly and so suddenly and so shockingly that he almost forgot to hold back enough not to kill Wardes, Emiya Shirou, a swordsman who had forever been leaching off of others' skills, completed the pinnacle of swordsmanship that should have been impossible for him to do.

Three swings completed simultaneously, an attack that was on the level of Multi-Dimensional Refraction. Through sheer skill, it touched upon the Kaleidoscope, the Second Magic of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, and attacked three times in the same instant. With the effort of a single swing, three were made instead, occupying the same place in time-space.

The first and third horizontal strikes hit Wardes' biceps on both arms, blunted to leave only nasty bruises instead of shattering bones, and the second strike came down from above, cleaving clear through Wardes' hat and stopping a bare inch from his scalp.

Tsubame Gaeshi. A technique that Shirou had never actually seen completed, but which had been recorded in the Blade Works alongside the sword that had been used to unleash it, Monohoshizao. It was the technique of a nameless swordsman who had spent his entire life perfecting it, who had dedicated his entire existence to mastering a skill that he had, in the trying, touched upon the realm of gods.

There was only silence as the technique completed, and neither Wardes nor Shirou moved. Everything seemed to have frozen. No one breathed, no one quivered — even the wind seemed to have stopped cold. Shirou felt as though even his heart had stopped.

It was Guiche who broke the silence.

"Th-three swings," he stuttered, "w-with one attack! I-I didn't know Sir Shirou could do such a thing!"

_Neither did I, _Shirou thought with a sort of detached amazement. This wasn't his own skill — no, he would never think himself so capable as to reproduce through sheer skill a technique he had never seen in person — so it had to be the runes.

He had thought, before, that they only increased his strength, agility, and speed when he was holding a sword. Those were the obvious effects, after all, and they were easy to see whenever he so much as touched Derf's hilt or brushed his fingers along the sword sheathed at his hip. There hadn't been anything else.

Until now. Just now, when the runes had pushed his body forward into a technique that Shirou should not have been able to do, had not had the practice or the skill to complete. And yet, they had given him the ability to perform it, and he had performed it so flawlessly that, if he'd been watching and unaware, he might have mistaken himself for its creator and master.

Just now, these runes had let him do that.

If they could let him recreate Tsubame Gaeshi…then what exactly were the limits?

"Darling," Kirche breathed rapturously, "you're so _cool_!"

"Sh-Shirou…"

Wardes' wand-sword fell limply from his right hand and clattered to the ground as his arms dropped bonelessly to his sides.

"Three swings simultaneously," he analyzed quietly, "and yet, you slowed each strike almost to a stop before you hit me…If you had used all your strength and the sharp side of that blade…I would be dead."

"The best swordsman I know, who could have otherwise defeated me handily, wouldn't have been able to survive," Shirou agreed.

If Tsubame Gaeshi were completed without flaw and without mistake, then even Saber would have been defeated. It was not an attack that could be blocked with a sword or dodged with pure speed. The only way to avoid it was to simply stop it before it was used.

"I see."

Yet, despite his pain, Wardes grinned.

"Yes, I was defeated, so I must concede. You have won, Sir Shirou, so as per our wager, I will not ask to room with Louise again."

Wardes turned his keen eyes to Guiche. "Mister Guiche. Please return to the hotel and find a Water Mage. If I am to be of any use for the rest of this trip, I will need my arms healed."

Guiche startled at being called on and blinked stupidly for a moment, then snapped his gaping mouth shut and immediately went to fetch a Water Mage for Wardes. Shirou relaxed out of his stance and pulled Derflinger away, who whispered, "Now, _that_ was one helluva ride!" before he was sheathed.

Wardes, defeated, bent down and picked up his wand-sword, wincing all the way, and then sheathed it at his belt. As he looked back up, his eyes met Shirou's for a moment, and between them passed a silent understanding.

Without saying a word, Wardes told Shirou, "I'll leave her in your care."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The rest of the day passed rather lazily — Wardes had been away for most of the afternoon experiencing the tender healing care of a rather pretty Water Mage who dealt with his bruises. Guiche had remained mostly silent, staring at Shirou with not a little bit of awe, while Tabitha had gone back to reading and Kirche was gushing every now and again to whoever would listen about how awesome Shirou was.

As a result, dinner was a bit awkward, but mostly a normal affair. Wardes, who had had a tailor stitch his ruined hat back together, favored both arms. Though the Water Mage had apparently healed them perfectly, it appeared they were still a little tender and sore, so he couldn't use them as easily or as well as he might have liked. Shirou felt a little bad for him, but wasn't sorry.

Lightning was dangerous, after all.

Louise seemed to be stewing about something and hadn't said more than a few words since the duel. Shirou suspected that she had still believed that Wardes might win, even knowing the sort of things Shirou was capable of — but that was only natural. When you had someone you looked up to, someone you were infatuated with the way Louise was Wardes, you tended to build them up and make them something more than what they were.

That was how heroes were born. That was how gods were born.

Even in modern schools and such, the same occurred. Hadn't Rin been the school idol, someone who was so perfect and so beautiful that she was an untouchable dream to everyone else? Hadn't everyone in school been so infatuated with her and so in awe of her that they'd placed her on a pedestal?

It was only natural, so Shirou didn't blame Louise for thinking so highly of Wardes — if nothing else, it was a leftover of her raising, the belief that the magic-wielding nobility were above everyone else.

Guiche, still silent, was eating sedately and looked like he had a lot on his mind. Tabitha had her book propped up on her legs and was alternating between taking bites of food and turning the pages. Kirche was quiet, too, but kept throwing Shirou looks when she thought he wasn't looking.

Shirou ignored all of it as he ate his own food, but kept a small portion of his attention on the others situated around the table. Sure, everything was peaceful _now_, but how often had he been in a similar situation? How often had things been calm and nice and jovial, only to suddenly be interrupted by an enemy assault?

Worse, you could expect that sort of thing if you knew who your enemy was, but it was much harder to predict if you didn't know who was giving the orders. Fouquet, that Heroic Spirit — they both answered to someone higher up on the chain, some mysterious, shadowy figure whose name and identity were completely unknown. How could you know whether you would be attacked if you didn't know what kind of person the enemy truly was?

You couldn't. You had to be prepared to act and defend yourself at any moment. You had to put yourself in a state of constant readiness.

Shirou had had much practice, so he could split his attention between his food and his companions, and he was ready to move at a moment's notice. After all, the best time to stage an attack was when your enemy was most unguarded, when they were relaxed and unfocused. In other words, when they were asleep or eating.

So —

An arrow whizzed by Shirou's ear. It came without warning and virtually without a sound and embedded itself into the marble table, splitting a piece of fruit in half on its way. For an instant, everything stopped and Louise, Guiche, Tabitha, and Kirche merely stared uncomprehendingly at the swaying feathered end.

Something heavy slammed into the front wall and made a big, gigantic hole right where the doors had been.

"My wall! My doors!" the owner cried, standing up. Another arrow whizzed through the room and landed in his shoulder, and, with his face etched with surprise, he fell backwards to the floor.

Shirou leapt to his feet, which startled the others, and said, "Down!"

The others dove out of their chairs and to the floor as Shirou hefted the entire table up at once and flipped it over, food flying all over the place. He set it heavily on the floor, legs sticking out and towards the new hole like spears just in time to catch the third arrow.

With the table between them and the door, Shirou ducked behind his makeshift barricade as the others in his group scrambled to join him. Wardes took up space at the left edge of the table with Guiche next to him, and then Shirou, and on Shirou's other side were Louise, Kirche, and Tabitha. Somehow, they all managed to squeeze behind that one table while the other patrons ducked underneath their own tables or else behind the counter at the other end of the room.

More arrows came — some soared up over the table and landed in the floor and some slammed home into the table itself with a loud thud, quivering. It was efficient: there was never enough time between volleys for one of the mages to stand up and take aim with a spell, so all they could do was simply sit there as arrows poured out of the darkness outside and pinned them to that one spot.

Then, everything stopped. Silence stretched out through the air, and for an instant, it seemed like it was all over.

Guiche made to stand and peer over the table, but Shirou pulled him back down and gave him a shake of his head. He leaned forward the look past Guiche to Wardes.

"Wardes," he whispered, and jerked his head upward. Wardes mouth thinned into a grim line and he nodded.

Taking off his newly repaired hat, Wardes slowly and steadily held it up over the edge of the table. It was an old, cliché trick, but for those who were looking for just the slightest hint of movement, it was a trick that worked.

Immediately, a volley of arrows came through the hole in the wall and tore Wardes' hat from his hand as they carried it away and pinned it to the floor.

It was as Shirou suspected, then. The first volley had been designed to get them behind cover and limit their available space. Now that they had, the enemy would wait until one of the mages of the group stood up to incant a spell, and then hit that mage with enough arrows to guarantee a kill.

It was a simple plan, but it was efficient and it worked. It also meant that it wasn't just bandits — bandits were more interested in items and money than killing people — it meant that their attackers were here for blood, and since the only ones who might be interested in killing Shirou and his group were enemies, either from Albion or Fouquet's master…

"How troublesome," Wardes muttered. Shirou silently agreed.

"Could it be those Nobles from Albion?" Louise asked quietly. "Reconquista?"

"Possible," Wardes answered. "If they had any idea what we our mission was, then there's no doubt Reconquista would try to stop us. On the other hand, I am a bit famous — it comes with being the Captain of the Griffin Knights. It's also possible that they want to kill me — if, as we suspect, Reconquista will turn its attentions to Tristain after the Royalists are beaten, then I would undoubtedly be a target of some value."

"But I don't think they're going to tell us either way," Shirou added. "The fact that they're attacking from a range means they know we have mages, but they probably have close-range fighters, too."

Guiche straightened a little and adopted a very serious expression. "Then," he began, "then my Valkyries can protect us —"

"They have too many men," Kirche pointed out with a shake of her fiery-red hair. "You can only make seven Valkyries, Guiche, against a group of at least twenty. Mercenary bands tend to become very large, after all."

"Listen to Zerbst," Louise told Guiche flatly. "She's a barbarian from Germania, so she would know."

Kirche huffed and crossed her arms under her chest — Shirou suspected she did it purposefully to emphasize her bust, because Louise flushed, looked down at her own chest, and scowled.

"Well, we won't know if we don't try," Guiche said a little hotly. "It couldn't hurt —"

"Except it's probably what they're waiting for," Kirche argued back. "Pin us down with arrows, shoot us when we stand up to incant, and if we manage to actually cast a spell, then overwhelm us with numbers and force us to exhaust ourselves! If you summon your Valkyries, they'll keep pressing until you're too tired to fight back!"

She huffed again. "Honestly! Don't you Tristainians know anything about tactics and strategy?"

"I am the son of General de Gramont," Guiche began indignantly, "how could I —"

"Quiet," Wardes ordered sharply.

Guiche's mouth snapped shut and even Kirche fell completely silent.

"Listen carefully," Wardes said quietly. "The mission doesn't require all of us to go. It counts as complete as long as the objective is fulfilled."

Tabitha's book snapped closed — Shirou hadn't even realized she'd still been reading the entire time — and she turned to Wardes with a closed-off dead stare that gave nothing away.

"Bait," she declared softly.

"Exactly," Wardes nodded.

Tabitha turned and pointed with her long staff at Shirou, Louise, and Wardes. "Go to the harbor," she ordered in the same tone. "We'll cover you."

"When?" Wardes asked.

"Now."

Wardes gave another nod. "Alright. Sir Shirou, Louise, we'll need to be quick or else this will all be for nothing —"

"Shirou," Louise's voice cut off everything. Wardes, who had been halfway to standing, stopped.

"Louise," he said, "we don't have time to argue —"

Louise ignored him and was focused entirely on Shirou. "Can you defeat them?"

Shirou allowed himself a very, very small smile. "Is that an order, Master?"

Louise smiled back, humorless. "Yes, it is. Shirou, defeat these mercenaries."

"Very well." He quirked an eyebrow. "Now that I think of it, I've never done magic in front of you before, have I, Louise?"

He sighed and closed his eyes, reaching into his inner world, into the Unlimited Blade Works.

"Magic?" Guiche asked.

"Darling is a mage?" Kirche asked, too.

He ignored them. "_I am the bone of my sword_."

Shirou snapped to his feet and threw out one arm even as another volley of arrows came flying.

"RHO AIAS!"

A wall sprang into existence, an invisible force field that blocked all the incoming arrows effortlessly. Marked only by seven pink petals, shaped like a hyacinth flower, it was a barrier seven layers strong, and each layer had the strength and fortitude of a fortress wall. It was the Rho Aias, the shield of Ajax of Telamon, sublimed into a conceptual weapon that could stalemate even Cúchulainn's Gáe Bolg.

"My affinity is swords," Shirou explained without looking away. More arrows came and struck the shield, all for naught. The mercenaries kept firing them, despite the fact that they weren't even denting the Aias. "With it, I can recreate nearly any weapon — swords, especially, but with a little more effort, spears, arrows, bows, warhammers, just about anything you could imagine. It's a bit more difficult, but I can even reproduce defensive items like shields."

Wardes, Louise, Guiche, and Kirche had all been struck silent, and even Tabitha, who was normally silent anyway, was staring up at him with her eyes wider than normal. None of them seemed to know what to say.

At last, the barrage of arrows stopped. Shirou walked out from behind the table and through the hole in the wall, dismissing the Aias with a gesture of his hand as he passed. He stepped out into the darkness of the night, and on the road before him, there was a group of armored men with assorted weaponry, obviously intent on fighting him if they had to.

He reached up and unsheathed Derflinger, ignoring the mercenaries as they tensed, and he glared out at them with a scowl.

"This is your only chance," he said loudly, making sure his voice carried to the archers who had no doubt hid themselves among the rocks and rooftops around him. "You attacked us unannounced without declaring grievances and came with the intent to kill, so I will give you this one chance."

Shirou pointed Derf's tip at the group on the road, all of whom flinched as though expecting him to attack.

"Leave," he barked the order. "Retreat now, and you won't be pursued. You have my word that none of you will come to harm."

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, the group on the road and the archers waiting in the wings all started laughing, lowly at first, then louder and louder until it echoed all around him.

"Leave?" one of the road group asked, taking a brave step forward. "There's only one of you and a whole bunch of us. We can beat you all on our own and step over your corpse!"

The brave one gestured with his hammer. "Kill him!"

The road group let out a warcry as one and charged at him, weapons all drawn. Shirou didn't waste any more breath and lifted his free hand. With a loud click, he snapped his fingers.

From nowhere, swords rained down out of the sky, each twice as tall as an ordinary man and nearly as wide. They came down from above and sank easily into the ground, and the warcry turned suddenly into panicked screams as the road group tried to get away from the blades. They huddled together as more and more swords came, cutting off each avenue of escape until they were completely and entirely surrounded, trapped behind a cage of steel twice their height and nearly as wide as they were.

Archer had used a similar trick on Rin during that night out by the lake behind the temple. In order to keep her from interfering, he had trapped her behind a cage of steel and left her only enough space to squint through — if she'd tried to squeeze her arm between the razor-sharp blades, she would have risked cutting herself, or even worse, lost her arm.

This was what Shirou had done to the group on the road. First, he had blocked the front, and then the sides and the rear as they tried to escape. The end result was a cage with barely enough room for all of them to stand and not enough space for them to escape. Each blade was thick and at least ten times as strong as an ordinary sword — that was only natural, because each sword was about ten times as big as an ordinary sword.

The swords would last about fifteen hours, more than enough time for the authorities to come and get these mercenaries and prepare cells for them. Before that, however, there were also the archers to take care of, so Shirou turned away from the captured brigands and closed his eyes.

"_Resonance_," he incanted. "_The sword cries out. A thousand siblings answer."_

A wave swept out from Shirou, ruffling his coat as it did so, and moved on and away with him as its center like a ripple. To an observer, it would look, perhaps, like nothing special, but it was actually a spell.

You couldn't always fight with your eyes. Shirou had learned that the hard way, after an experience with a particularly nasty Ancestor. Some creatures had powerful ocular abilities called Mystic Eyes which let them do things like bend the minds of those who met their gazes or infatuate anyone who looked in their direction. To fight those kinds of enemies, or really any enemy who you couldn't observe visually for whatever reason, you needed something that let you see that which you could not look at.

That was what this spell did. It worked on a principle similar to echolocation used by creatures like bats and sent out a wave that observed his surroundings and reported them back as visual information. If he were better as a mage, he probably could have gotten that visual information in color and great detail, but since he wasn't, it came back as basically grey blobs. The only details the spell really showed him were general shapes.

But it was enough. With the spell, he found the location of the archers, who showed up as human-shaped blobs crouched around the place.

Right. Time to knock them out.

"Trace, on."

In the air, yet more swords formed — no, more accurately, a single sword formed several times. With a sleek, slender shape, a white-wrapped grip, a simple guard, and a tiger-striped talisman dangling from the pommel, no less than two dozen copies of Torashinai appeared in the air, and with a mental command, shot off into the dark.

Several cries of pain echoed out as they found their marks and slammed into the heads of the archers. It would definitely be a painful blow, but Shirou had specifically blunted the effects, and even more specifically used a practice wooden sword rather than the real thing, to keep from killing anyone unnecessarily.

Shirou let out a sigh and flicked his Circuits off, sheathing Derflinger ("I didn't even get to do anything!"). He allowed himself to relax; the threat was dealt with.

"It's alright!" he called back into the inn. "You can come out, now!"

He turned back towards the captured mercenaries and wryly thought that if he didn't face an actual threat sometime soon, then he was going to get rusty —

"Shirou! Behind y —"

But the warning wasn't fast enough. Even as Shirou started to turn around, something sharp bit into his side and dragged through the skin and muscle, erupting into agony. A dark shape fluttered past him like a ghost, and a splash of red blood splattered onto the ground.

Shirou's hand immediately flew to his wounded side as he turned to face his attacker. Behind him, he heard the footsteps of Louise and the rest of the group come to a halt.

The dark shape was a man, relatively tall and shrouded in a black cloak. Silvery armor peeked out on his feet and a scraggly mane of wavy red hair hung from his head, but the face was guarded by a mask with ornate symbols and tribal lines painted onto it. In one of the figure's hands was a long polearm with a wickedly curved blade.

"Yes," the figure said in a calm voice. "Having seen is up close with my own eyes, I can say this with certainty: that sword is not Excalibur, and you are not King Arthur."

The figure shifted. On his feet, little wings fluttered at the ankles of his armored sandals.

"That woman was mistaken," the figure declared. "Though it looks similar, you do not carry with you the pinnacle of holy swords, a divine miracle crafted from the glory all warriors seek. Yours is a mere facsimile. It would trick idiots and incompetents, but not a real Heroic Spirit."

The polearm came up and pointed at Shirou. "You are a pretender, hiding in the shadow of a true hero, grasping at whatever fame and glory you can using the name of a great king."

Shirou grunted and observed his hand — it was covered in blood.

"I never claimed to be King Arthur," he declared calmly, "nor did I attempt to use that name to further myself. I simply didn't correct that woman when she assumed I was Arthur. It was a pragmatic decision to provide me a psychological advantage over the enemy — much like you decided to wear a cloak and a mask to hide your own identity."

The figure didn't flinch or otherwise react to the accusation. Shirou filed that away — it meant that this Heroic Spirit, for he could not be anything else with that presence, had no compunctions with using whatever he could to his own advantage.

"But it's pointless anyway," Shirou went on. "Even with your face hidden behind that mask and your armor and distinguishing features hidden by that cloak, I can tell your name with but a single glance at your sword, Heroic Spirit _Perseus_."

For a long moment, the figure said nothing, and then, slowly and calmly, the other hand came up and pulled away the mask to reveal a handsome face.

"In another time, in another place, I would have to fight you because you knew my name," Perseus acknowledged. "However, my objectives here tonight have been fulfilled, so there is no reason for me to stay here any longer. We will meet another time, nameless hero."

He leapt backwards and off the cliff, and though it might have been suicidal for others, Shirou knew Perseus had no reason to concern himself — the winged sandals, Talaria, would let him fly.

Shirou turned away immediately and back to the others. "Grab our stuff and head for the harbor. We need to get going."

"S-Sir Shirou!" Guiche protested. "You're wounded!"

"Zerbst!" Louise ordered. "Find a Water Mage!"

"Don't bother, Kirche," Shirou countermanded. "Get our luggage. We need to get out of here quickly."

Louise bristled. "Shirou, you're wounded! We're not leaving until it gets looked at! That's an order!"

"There's no point, Louise —"

"Darling, I know you're trying to be manly and everything, and it's really cute, but —"

"Sir Shirou," Wardes interrupted, "a wound will only slow you down. Better to take a few minutes to get it treated now rather than lose so much more time along the way."

"Exactly!" Louise agreed. "You need to get it treated before it gets worse!"

Shirou grimaced and let his hand drop away from his side.

Everyone stopped. Wardes recoiled. Louise's skin turned the pale color of milk and Kirche looked a little green. Tabitha's eyes went wide, which Shirou suspected was her way of screaming in surprise, and Guiche swore faintly.

The wound Shirou had been given had never been especially deep or life-threatening, but it was far more serious than a paper cut. Immediately after the attack, it would have been red and raw and you could probably have seen the rings of severed muscle where he'd been cut. Now, the sliced skin still bled a little sluggishly, but beneath it, where the injured flesh should have been, there was only a mishmash of interlocking swords that tied it all together.

"It's not healing," Shirou explained to them. "Even if you went and found the best Water Mage in Tristain, she couldn't heal this injury. Right now, this magic is holding the wound closed, but it won't heal it. This has to heal on its own."

There was a short silence.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Louise asked shakily. Her eyes were still glued to his side.

"The sword that inflicted this wound is one that possesses a curse," Shirou told her. He watched them all flinch, except, curiously enough, Wardes. "Any wound it inflicts cannot be healed by any magic, but only by the body's normal processes. That is the effect of Harpe: All Life is Equal."

He brought his hand back up to his side. "But you do have something of a point. Guiche." Guiche startled. "Go get our luggage and bring it here. Use your Valkyries if you need to, just make sure you get all of it as quickly as you can."

He nodded and left, scrambling through the hole in the wall and tripping once or twice on his way.

"Kirche." Kirche startled, too.

"Yes, Darling?"

"Go back inside, check on the others. If you can, get us some bandages so I can wrap this." He gestured to his wound. "Take Tabitha with you."

She nodded, grabbed Tabitha, and went back inside. Shirou turned to the last two members of their group. "Sir Wardes."

Wardes straightened.

"I need you to go to the docks and see if you can't find us a ship. We should leave as soon as possible."

Wardes, though Shirou expected him to comment about who was leading the mission, only nodded, said "Of course," and made for the docks.

That left Shirou alone with Louise.

For a long moment, there was only silence as they stared at each other. Shirou expected perhaps questions about his skills, or even for Derf to interject with a dry comment, but when it was finally broken, it was Louise who quietly asked, "Are you okay?"

Shirou grimaced and pulled his hand away for a moment. He was still bleeding, and it wasn't that good. If it wasn't for the mesh of swords holding the wound closed, he might have bled out within a couple more minutes.

He wasn't about to tell Louise that, though.

"I've had worse," he settled for instead.

She frowned, took a few steps closer, and reached out as though to touch him, but hesitated and dropped her hand at the last few inches.

"Does it hurt?"

Shirou chuckled a little. "It's a sword wound, Louise."

She scowled at him and took a stance, hands on her hips. "I was just trying to be nice!" she said angrily. "You don't need to be sarcastic about it!"

Shirou laughed again. Indignant, with her cheeks red and her eyes narrowed, she looked cute.

"My apologies, Master," he said, bowing a little (and hiding a wince when his wound protested). "I'll keep that in mind from now on."

She kept up the scowl for a few moments longer, then dropped it, sighed, and looked over at where Perseus had stood.

"I was expecting it to be much easier than this," she confessed. "I thought…I don't know. I guess I thought we'd just go in and grab the letter without running into any trouble."

Shirou hummed an agreement. "That was the plan. There's a proverb in my homeworld, though. 'No plan survives contact with the enemy.' Or something like that."

"I guess not," Louise lamented. "So far, _nothing_ has gone according to plan. First, those bandits, and then Zerbst and Tabitha, then those mercenaries, and now, another one of those crazy strong guys. How are we supposed to fight a _pseudo god_?"

"You're not," Shirou said immediately. "_I_ am. I'd be a pretty horrible Servant if I actually expected you to fight an enemy like that."

"But you're wounded!" she pointed to his side. "He did that to you! What if it's more serious, next time? What if he cuts off your arm or your head? If you can't heal those injuries with magic, then you could die, Shirou! For real!"

"Which is nothing new," Shirou said a little more harshly than he'd intended. She flinched. "Any experienced fighter goes into battle knowing that it could be his last. Any experience fighter knows that he could be killed by the enemy. I told you that I've had far worse injuries than this, Louise — that is the truth. If I shied away simply because I could die, then I could never accomplish anything. If you're always afraid of failing, then you can never move forward."

Louise flinched again. "But —"

"I'm back!" Kirche announced, stepping out of the inn with a roll of bandages brandished in one hand. Tabitha was next to her.

"Good," Shirou said. "Bring them over here. I'll need some help with this…"

It only took a few minutes to take off his coat and shirt (and he ignored both Kirche, who stared at the exposed muscles gained from years of practice and dedication, and Louise, whose eyes jumped from scar to scar as though she were just now realizing all he'd been through) and start bandaging his side. He could technically have done it himself, but it would wind up neater and better off if he had someone else to wrap them.

Fortunately for the sake of his sanity, he'd enlisted Tabitha to help him instead of Kirche. Unlike Kirche, who probably would have taken the chance to feel him up as much as she could get away with, Tabitha neatly and efficiently bandaged his wound. Her nimble fingers and careful system of up and down circles belied experience — obviously, she had done something like this before. But for who, he wondered?

Well, either way, he was thankful to have her. If this was any indication, then this mission to Albion might prove more dangerous than he had first estimated.

With two Heroic Spirits out there, both of them hostile, someone to bind their group's wounds would be invaluable.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_Servant:_ Perseus

_Class:_ Sylph

_Strength:_ B+

_Mana:_ B+

_Endurance:_ A

_Agility:_ A+

_Luck:_ A+

**Class Skills**:

___O'r Awyr:_ A (A skill granted to powerful wind-element familiars. The power of wind-based attacks increases dramatically, and the cost of all wind-based magic is decreased by half.)

_M__ental Interference: _C (The average level of compulsion, necessary for creatures that would not normally obey their Masters. Equivalent to the compulsion needed to "tame" a Rhyme Dragon.)

**Personal Skills:**

_Magic Resistance:_ B (Cancel spells with a chant below three verses ("Triangle Level"). Even if targeted by High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals, it is difficult for him to be affected.)

_Independent Action: _A (Capable of working without any support or orders from the Master whatsoever. Because of his constitution, he can fight entirely on his own and prefers the solitude. At this level, his fortitude and morale will increase as long as he is fighting without assistance from allies.)

_Charisma:_ B

_Divinity: _B

_Eye of the Mind (False):_ B

**Noble Phantasms:**

_**Name: **_Harpe

_Title: _All Life Is Equal

_Rank: _B

_Type: _Anti-Unit

_Range: _2-4

_Number of Targets: _1

_**Name:**_ Talaria

_Title: _Divine Winged Sandals

_Rank: _E+

_Type: _Anti-Unit

_Range: _1

_Number of Targets: _1

_**Name:**_ Bellerophon

_Title: _Bridle of Chivalry

_Rank: _A+

_Type: _Anti-Army

_Range: _2-50

_Number of Targets: _300

_**Name:**_ Kibisis

_Title: _Reversal of Reality

_Rank: _C

_Type: _Barrier

_Range: _1-4

_Number of Targets: _1

_**Name:**_ Aegis

_Title: _Almighty Mirror Shield

_Rank: _A++

_Type: _Barrier

_Range: _1-3

_Number of Targets: _3

_**Name: **_Mantle of Darkness

_Title: _Cloak of Invisibility

_Rank: _C

_Type: _Anti-Unit

_Range: _1

_Number of Targets: _1

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**Longest chapter yet, not including Chapter One before I split it into two chapters.**

**So, about Rin. I kinda expected at least **_**some**_** questions about her by now, but so far, no one's said anything. I figured I'd clear it up anyway: the Rin that Shirou is talking to isn't real (and I can hear the "duh!" that just went through all of your minds), she's basically a hallucination. There are very good reasons why she's around, though, so even though you might not think there's any reason why she should show up, there is. And it'll throw you for a loop when you find out why. (It's taking all of my not-inconsiderable control to stop myself from giving you spoilers about it.) Even if you ask, I can neither confirm nor deny anything.**

**The chapter title is a reference to **_**Campione!**_** (which I've never actually gotten around to reading) — Artus, the god around who all King Arthur myths are based (according to **_**Campione! **_**canon, anyway), is referred to as "the Strongest God of Steel," or "the Strongest Steel," and also "King of the End." Revenant Sword fans who were paying attention will understand why it's appropriate.**

**The duel with Wardes originally wasn't going to happen, but I wrote the scene in the hotel where Shirou basically said to Wardes, "Are you stupid?" and both I and the guys on the forum went, "Yeah, there's no way Wardes would let that go." So, it happened, and Shirou discovered, though he still doesn't fully grasp the extent of it yet, that Gandalfr runes let you recreate any sword/weapon technique/style that exists as long as you know of it and (I guess) have some idea of how it works. Saito did it with a Battoujutsu in canon, but it never really showed up after that.**

**Also, before I forget, nobody is dead until you see the body (or until the body is vaporized, whichever comes first). Even if a character appears to die, unless you see the body, it doesn't always mean he or she is dead. Some characters will appear to die, but you should all treat this like you're doctors: until we feel for a pulse and get nothing, they could still be alive.**

**Some people just don't die when they're killed. (If you get that joke, good for you.) **

**Last thing, then, and it's a question: what do you guys think of the new summary? Better than before? Worse? If you think you can do better, write one and send it to me. If you write one that I like better than either of the two I've used myself, then I'll use yours and you'll get an honorable mention in the Author's Notes.**

**As always, read, review, enjoy.**


	6. Lapse From Virtue - Part One

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter VI: Lapse From Virtue — Part One  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

"Louise, where are you? Come out, now!"

Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière was the third and youngest daughter of the de La Vallière family, a very important family of magic-wielding Nobles who were held in very high esteem by the Queen's court. They even owned a rather large duchy, an incredibly large estate covering acres and acres of the best land in Tristain.

Cattleya and Éléonore were Louise's elder sisters, and though Cattleya had a rather fragile constitution, both were skilled and accomplished mages who had inherited the strong magical lineage of the de La Vallière family.

Louise, however, had not. Constantly compared with her much more skilled and much better sisters, Louise had always known that she didn't measure up, and she had always known that her mother was disappointed in her for it.

That was why Louise had run away, why she didn't respond as her mother called out for her so sternly. That was why she was hidden among the bushes, with silent tears streaming down her round cheeks — because, once again, she had failed, and she had disappointed her mother again.

Louise saw a pair of shoes beneath the bushes, and knew that she would be found out in a moment. A second's indecision stopped her; was she ready to be found, yet?

"Miss Louise is so bad at magic!"

"I know. Why can't she be more like her older sisters?"

Louise's little heart, already so low, plummeted again, and an uncomfortable feeling twisted in her belly, and while the two servants were distracted, she skirted out of her hiding place and ran off to the central lake on her family's property, which she referred to (if only to herself) as the "Secret Garden."

It was the only place where Louise felt truly at ease. It was tranquil and isolated, and though it had once been a hotspot quite some time ago, no one ever came to it anymore. Flowers grew everywhere and birds perched themselves on the old wooden benches on the shore. And smack in the middle of the lake was a small island where a little house made of white marble stood.

Resting on the shore was a small boat, derelict and forgotten. It had once been used for leisurely rides out onto the lake, but since her sisters were now grown and practicing magic and her father spent his time politicking, Louise was the only one who ever came to this forgotten lake anymore and the only one who remembered that small boat.

That was why, whenever she was feeling sad or had been reprimanded for her poor magic skills, Louise came out to this lake, where no one and nothing could bother her.

She jumped into the boat and pushed off the shore, snuggling into a blanket that she had left there the last time she had visited. Already, she was starting to feel a little better.

Little Louise flinched as a sudden gust of wind sent her pigtails fluttering, and when she looked up again, a handsome nobleman clad in a cloak was sitting opposite her in the boat. The nobleman, a sixteen-year-old Viscount Wardes, offered Louise, a six-year-old who thought him to be quite charming, a smile.

"Have you been crying, Louise?"

"Sir Wardes?"

Louise hurriedly dried her eyes on the corner of her blanket — she couldn't let the man of her dreams see her in tears.

"I was invited by your father today to discuss the engagement," Wardes explained gently.

Louise's cheeks flushed red. It was only the natural reaction of embarrassment, of the complicated feelings one has when faced with the one she admires who speaks to her so tenderly and so intimately.

"But," Louise protested, "but, Sir Wardes!"

Wardes regarded her gently. "Do you dislike me so, my dainty little Louise?"

Louise flushed redder. "N-no, that's not…!" she protested stutteringly. "I mean, I'm so young…"

Like the chime of a bell, Wardes laughed and held out a hand in offering. Louise, unsure, hesitated. Was she ready? Was she prepared?

Could she abandon everything else to fulfill one dream she wasn't sure she was ready for?

Perhaps that was why Shirou was seeing this scene. Louise, who put on an act of maturity and sturdiness, a mask of confidence in everything she said and did, was not sure if it was worth it. She was not sure if she was prepared to abandon all her other hopes and dreams in order to marry the man who she had fantasized about since she was a little girl.

It was only natural. Everyone had hopes and dreams and everyone wanted to chase those dreams. When one dream, the dream of marrying and falling in love, conflicted with another dream, a dream of success and glory and making a name for oneself, it was only natural that one dream would have to be sacrificed.

The question was, which dream would Louise sacrifice?

It seemed that even she wasn't sure. She couldn't decide whether to take Wardes' hand or refuse. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to sacrifice the possibility of a future filled with glory and praise and renown for marriage and the possibility of a great love, or if she wanted to sacrifice marriage and the possibility of a great love for glory and praise and renown.

The question, then: a surety of marriage, where she never had to concern herself with any other troubles, or a future of hardship for a dream that might never come true? Which was worth pursuing?

Two paths diverged in a yellow wood…right, Rin?

The scene faded into inky blackness before Shirou could see whether or not Louise took Wardes' hand, and he was suddenly sent spiraling down, falling through an empty void that pressed against him on all sides, that squeezed the breath from his lungs and compressed his body into a tiny speck —

And he woke up. Slowly, groggily, so that, at first, he wasn't quite sure where or when he was. Dazed and confused, with the remnants of the dream, vision, _whatever-it-was_ playing about in his head and a high-pitched whistle chiming in his ears, he tried to sit up — and fell back into bed before he made it even an inch as the wound in his side flared up angrily.

Wound in his side…? When did he…?

Ah, yes, he thought as the ringing in his ears started to fade. Louise, Kirche, Tabitha, Wardes, Guiche, the mission from Princess Henrietta, the ring and letter, the duel with Wardes, the attack on the inn they'd been staying at…

Perseus.

Right. Perseus had taken him by surprise and gotten in that cheap shot with Harpe. The wound was mostly superficial, but it was deep enough that it would take quite a while to heal, so he'd be subpar for a while until it had a chance to close up (and Shirou found himself missing Avalon's healing powers). It probably hadn't helped that he'd used his Reality Marble to keep the wound closed until proper bandages could be found — that likely set his recovery back by a few days, which meant that it would be even longer before he could move without worrying about tearing it open again.

Sloppy, Shirou cursed himself. He'd gotten complacent without anyone to give him a serious challenge. If he'd been paying better attention rather than patting himself on the back, Perseus would never have gotten close enough to wound him like this.

He would have to rectify that, soon. He couldn't afford to leave himself so open — what if Perseus had been smarter and gone for his head?

Right. No more taking it easy.

Shirou took in a breath and braced himself, preparing to get up off the comfy bed (when had he gotten into a bed?) when he finally heard something over the damnable ringing in his ears.

"— saw it too, right?"

It was Kirche's voice, hushed only so much so that she didn't wake him. She must be in the room with him, he realized.

"…Yes."

It was Tabitha's voice that answered, as soft and as monosyllabic as always. So, Kirche wasn't alone. Were Louise and the others nearby?

"So, it wasn't just me? I didn't imagine it or anything like that?"

"…No. Saw it, too."

"What kind of magic…" the thud of feet walking back and forth along a wooden floor. Kirche must have been pacing. "That wound…it was being held together by a metal mesh. It looked…sort of like that old scale armor they used to use almost two thousand years ago, only thicker and sharper and pointier. Like…like swords or something."

"…Swords."

Ah, so that's what they were talking about.

Perhaps that hadn't been such a good idea, showing it to them, but, well, his patience had been short and he wasn't ashamed to admit that Perseus's sneak attack had shaken him.

One Heroic Spirit was one thing, but two, working together on top of that?

It didn't bode well. Little could stand against some of the things Shirou could bring to bear, and Shirou was confident enough in his own abilities to hold them off, but both times those Heroic Spirits had attacked, Louise had been nearby. As long as she was anywhere close, it wouldn't be difficult, nor would it be unlikely, that those two Heroic Spirits would take advantage of her importance to him.

Shirou was capable of a lot of things, but beating two Heroic Spirits while protecting Louise was…not impossible, but certainly very difficult.

"I knew that Darling was different, but…I never imagined…" Kirche muttered, more to herself it seemed than to Tabitha. "I mean, a strange name and strange hair…but I've never even _heard_ of something like that before!"

"Strange," Tabitha agreed seriously.

"Earth magic?" Kirche proposed. "Maybe…I don't know what else it could have been, but something like that…Can it even be called Earth Magic?"

"No. Too different."

"You're right," Kirche agreed as though Tabitha had given a very in-depth answer. "Earth Magic of that level is…Well, I don't know if that sort of magic is even _possible_, except that I saw it myself. If it _was_ Earth Magic, it'd be Square level, easily. Only Square Mages have the sort of control and power to do something like that."

There was a huff and some more thuds as Kirche paced across the floor again.

"But I thought it wasn't possible to summon mages with the Summon Servant spell. Isn't it? I mean, the whole point was to avoid a political scandal if one mage were forced to be another's familiar, so it shouldn't be possible, should it?"

"…Impossible."

Kirche gave another frustrated huff. "But Louise the Zero seems to have done it anyway."

A rusty chuffing sound suddenly rang out through the room; it came from somewhere to Shirou's left near his head, and he recognized it immediately as Derf laughing.

"Oh, it's just you," Kirche said with a bit of disdain. "That talking sword my Darling carries around. What's so funny?"

"Yer not givin' Brimir enough credit, girly," Derf said with a chuckle. "Yer thinkin' too narrowly. Why does it hafta be Earth Magic? Why does it hafta be Square magic? For that matter, why does it hafta be any magic of this world at all?"

Kirche huffed again. "Just what are you trying to say? Not Earth magic? Not Square magic? Not magic of this world? You're not making any sense!"

"…other worlds."

Derf let out a rusty chuckle again.

"What she said." Shirou imagined one quillon wiggling towards Tabitha. "The Summoning spell you kids use to summon yer familiars, it reaches across time and space, right? But what if yer proper familiar ain't in this world? Not in the past, the present, or in the future? Yeh'd get nothin', right? So of course a spell capable of reaching into the past or the future can do somethin' like reach into other worlds. Ol' Brimir _built_ it that way."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"That's why yer thinkin' too narrowly," Derf concluded. "Earth magic? Square magic? Them's the way _we_ classify magic. But if partner's from a different world, why should his magic be anything like ours?"

There was another moment of silence. Around them, the ship creaked with motion.

"…It's starting to make sense," Kirche said at last. "Strange hair, strange name, so utterly _clueless_ about how things work here…I thought maybe he was from one of the distant countries on the other side of Rub' al Khali, because otherwise it didn't make sense, but…from another world?"

"Yeh think it's so strange?" Derf asked. "The things yeh've seen since partner got here…whaddya think that guy from last night was? I tell you, missy, this isn't the first time someone's summoned a familiar from another world."

"So then…Louise the Zero isn't the first person to do something like this?"

"And she won't be the last."

"Who —"

A knock on the door interrupted her before it swung open.

"Sir Wardes wanted to speak with us," Guiche's voice said. "He asked me to come and find you."

"Wardes, huh?" Kirche asked sultrily. "Oh, I knew it was only a matter of time. Even a man like Wardes would naturally choose me over a girl like Louise. He's fallen for my womanly charms!"

"…Unlikely."

"Don't ruin my fun, Tabitha —"

Their footsteps crossed the room and the door closed with a creak and a bang behind them. For a moment, there was only silence.

"Yeh plannin' on getting up anytime soon, Partner?"

Derf broke it.

"Thought I'd give it a minute," Shirou replied. "You know, take a few moments to just lie here in the ambience of silence…"

Derf snorted. "You? Enjoying ambience?"

A laughter that sounded like Rin's echoed in the back of his head.

"You're right," Shirou agreed with a smile. "It's a little bit out of character, isn't it?"

"How does the saying go?" Derf asked. "A leopard can't change his spots?"

"Something like that."

For another moment, they fell into silence again. Shirou, careful to mind his wound, sat up and swung his feet out of bed onto the floor.

"Why did you tell them that?"

"What? That yer from another world?"

"Yes, _that_."

"They were gonna find out eventually, Partner. Better do it now before they start comin' up with a whole bunch o' conspiracy theories. Nip it in the bud, so ta speak."

"You couldn't let _me_ do it, when I was ready?"

Derf snorted. "When were yeh gonna be ready? Sometime next year?"

"I don't know. At the very least, I would've liked some time to prepare myself. If I'm going to give Kirche an explanation, then it should be a good one, a proper one, and besides all of that, I'm not sure telling them was a good idea anyway. The mages here have no idea what True Magic is."

"So, tell 'em," Derf said simply.

This time, Shirou snorted. "Right. Try to explain to a bunch of stuck up nobles that everything they understand about the world is wrong. If I wanted to get Louise excommunicated, there are better ways than that, Derf."

"Listen, Partner, I'm just a sword," Derf said. "My job is ta stab things, that's all. What does it matter to me who I'm stabbing? Things like morals and ideology don't really mean anything to me. But even I understand that yeh can't keep things like this from the people yeh spend the most time with. Eventually, it's gonna come out, and if yeh wait too long, it ain't gonna end well."

"…The maddening thing is that you're right," Shirou conceded at length. "The further into this mission we get, the more it seems like Tabitha and Kirche are going to find out anyway. Already, we've run into a Heroic Spirit. If we run into another…"

Derf chuffed. "Trouble seems to follow you everywhere, Partner."

"Unfortunately," Shirou agreed. He sighed. "I worry, Derf. So far, neither of the Heroic Spirits we've encountered were a grave threat — each was powerful in their own way, but I could defeat both if it came down to it — but if another shows up, a much stronger one, at that…"

Gilgamesh would be the worst. No, in the first place, the only reason Shirou could beat him was if Gilgamesh didn't take him seriously. Without Avalon to protect him from Ea, there was no way to win if that impossible sword were unleashed in full. Gilgamesh was the very worst enemy that could have been summoned.

Lancelot was second. Naturally, the compatibility was horrid — Lancelot's Noble Phantasm, Shirou didn't know the name, let him take any weapon he grasped with his hands and give it the property, "Lancelot's Noble Phantasm." Anything Shirou Traced would naturally be vulnerable, and it would take some truly incredible maneuvering to negate Lancelot's advantage.

Yes. Gilgamesh and Lancelot were the worst two possibilities, and when one considered that the two Heroic Spirits he had encountered so far were a pirate from the middle ages and a hero from ancient Greece, separated in history by at least 1500 years, the idea that one of those two heroes could be summoned as well wasn't nearly farfetched.

Moreover…two so far, and how many more would come?

That was why the sword sheathed at his hip was a very cold comfort indeed.

"ALBION IN SIGHT!" a voice bellowed down from above deck.

"Well," Shirou stood slowly, careful not to aggravate his wound, "I guess we're about there."

He grabbed Derf and slung the sheath over his shoulder. He crossed the room in three long strides and went through the door and out of the room; it creaked and closed shut with a click behind him as he started up the steps that led to the main deck.

"You know, Partner," Derf murmured; Shirou paused, one foot hanging in the air halfway to the next stair, "you worry too much. If the girly summoned you, then you're the one best suited to protect her. Remember that."

Shirou felt his lips curl into a smile. "Indeed."

He stepped up and out into the day. Golden sunlight streamed down from a clear blue sky — they were so far up that they had actually crested above the clouds, leaving nothing but an expanse of boundless azure above them. On the deck, all over the boat, the crewmen worked like a well-oiled machine, hosting sails and keeping everything in working order.

Shirou tilted his head back — above the ship, looming out of the sky in the distance, gigantic and overwhelming, was the floating island country, Albion. Streaming off the mountains that reached up to scratch the sky were rivers that ran off the edge of the island and shimmered into mist beneath it, cloaking the bottom of the island in a glimmering cloud of sparkling white.

Shirou could understand why someone might think it beautiful.

He walked out onto the deck, and there, standing at the…portside, he thought it was called, at the rails arranged along the portside of the deck were Guiche, Tabitha, Kirche, Wardes, and Louise. He made to join them —

"SHIP APPROACHING STARBOARD SIDE!" the voice from before shouted.

Shirou's head swiveled to the right of its own accord and he looked up: there, silhouetted against the blue sky, was another large ship, easily at least twice as large as the one they were flying, and it was painted entirely black. From the one side, more than a dozen gunmetal gray barrels gleamed in the sun.

A warship.

They were about to be attacked.

"ALL HANDS, BRACE YOURSELVES!" another voice called — probably the captain or the first mate.

"THE SHIP ISN'T FLYIN' ANY COLORS, CAPTAIN!" yet another voice bellowed.

"PIRATES!" someone screamed. "THEY'RE PIRATES!"

"ALL AHEAD, FULL, MISTER SPARROW!" the captain's voice echoed.

"ALL AHEAD, FULL!"

"ALL AHEAD, FULL!"

"FULL CANVAS!" the captain roared again.

"FULL CANVAS!"

"SIR WARDES, IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND!"

The sails, which had been only half unfurled, fell fully open on the masts. Beneath Shirou's feet, the ship lurched suddenly and began to pick up speed. The pleasant breeze that had been playing across the deck transformed into a swift wind that whipped Shirou's hair around and sent the loose ends of his clothing aflutter. Wardes had disappeared from the portside railing and was undoubtedly helping to speed up the ship.

But even Shirou, who knew virtually nothing about ships, flying or otherwise, could tell that it wouldn't be enough.

The black warship sped up and twisted around to flank them, gaining with each second, even as the sails, unfurled to full canvas, bent outwards in the wind. Their ship simply wasn't fast enough — it took only a matter of minutes for the pirates to catch up.

Shirou, knowing what was about to happen, quickly placed himself between Louise and the pirate ship and turned his Circuits on. He'd offer the chance for surrender first; he'd rather not spill blood today, if he could help it. But if it came down to a fight…if he had to kill these pirates…

Well, the lives of a few pirates could not compare to those of his Master and an entire country.

"Shirou!"

"Stay behind me, Master," he ordered Louise.

"But Darling, you're injured!" Kirche protested.

"Injured," Tabitha agreed.

"The Water Mage said you shouldn't aggravate your wound, Shirou!" Louise added. "You shouldn't even have gotten out of bed! She said you needed rest!"

Water Mage? So they'd employed a healer to look at his wound despite his saying that it was pointless, huh? But still —

"Your safety is far more important, Louise."

"Shirou —"

"Sir Emiya," Guiche began, "your courage is admirable, but —"

A loud BANG echoed through the air. There was no way the others could see it, but Shirou watched as the cannonball moved, almost in slow motion, and soared over their heads and into the clouds. On the center mast, the black warship flew a signal comprised of four colors; Shirou had no idea what it meant, but he could guess: stop, or we'll blow you out of the sky.

"THEY'RE ORDERING US TO STOP, CAPTAIN!"

"That was a warning shot!" Wardes' voice called. "The next one won't miss!"

"Orders, Captain?!"

"All my magic is focused on keeping us in the air! I can't stop them!"

"Orders, Captain?!"

Shirou risked a glance to the helm, where the captain was looking about wildly for an escape. For the ship, there was none: they were outmatched and outgunned, and the ship wasn't fast enough to escape the pirates' ship. The moment of surrender was obvious — he could see it in the resigned slump of the captain's shoulders.

"Wrap sails!" the captain ordered. "Stop the ship!"

The billowing sails were pulled tight and wrapped up within moments, and with a great lurch, the ship slowed and sputtered to a stop. Beside them, the pirate ship kept pace as closely as they dared, cannons still posed to tear the much smaller ship to pieces.

"Don't resist!" someone on the pirate ship called. "Or we'll blow you out of the sky!"

A dozen figures lined up along the warship's side and used bows and rifles to attach grappling hooks to the rigging, and with a single swing, flung themselves onto the deck with Shirou and the merchant crew. Shirou tensed — they all wielded axes and sabers, cutlasses that looked surprisingly well cared for, and were carrying them menacingly as they rounded the crew up on the deck.

It took only a few short minutes — no one tried to fight back, and even Wardes quietly did as told as the pirates gathered the crew into one big huddle on the main deck. It was only natural, Shirou figured; this crew was a merchant crew, not soldiers on a warship.

A final man came last as the rest of the pirates circled around the captured crew, and he was a tall, lean-muscled figure who wore clothes that might once have been rather nice and well-kept. He wore a patch over one eye and a long black cloak over a tattered blue cloat that must have been a uniform of some kind at one point. By his bearing, the way he strode across the deck confidently as though he were untouchable, he could only have been the captain of the pirate ship.

The man's good eye swept over the captured crew.

"Who's the captain of this vessel?" he demanded gruffly.

"Me." The captain, shaking a little, stepped forward. The man took three long steps over to him.

"What's the name of this ship and what does she carry?" the pirate captain asked.

"Tristain's _Marie Galante. _The cargo is sulfur."

A pleased rumble rippled among the pirates and the pirate captain smiled a cold smile.

"Then it seems I'll be needing to commandeer this vessel," he said almost conversationally. "I'll even pay you. I'll be very reasonable about it, too. In fact, in exchange for this ship's cargo, I'll allow you all to keep your lives!"

The pirates all laughed uproariously. The captain shrank back as the pirate captain turned away from him and swept his gaze across the rest of the crew. At the back, separate from the others, Shirou tensed as that one keen, blue eye landed first on him, and then on Louise.

"Oho!" the pirate captain chortled. "It seems we have Noble guests!"

He strode through the crowd, which parted like the sea around him, and came up to Louise and Shirou. With the carelessness of a man who knew he'd won, he leaned towards Louise and eyed her appraisingly.

"We have a beauty, here." He reached a grubby, dirty hand out to lift Louise's chin. "Tell me, miss, how would you like to be —"

The hand never made it to Louise's chin — Shirou grabbed the wrist, first, careful not to break it just yet. The laughter stopped.

"So long as I breathe, you won't lay a finger on my Master," Shirou threatened. "If you leave now without a fight, then no one will get hurt, but if you insist on trying to force your way, then I'll simply blow you away."

"Sh-Shirou," Louise whispered.

The pirate seemed somewhere between surprised and amused.

"Outnumbered and outgunned, and still so confident?" he asked with a strange smile. "Is it courage, loyalty, or stupidity that drives you, I wonder?"

"Darling…" Kirche began.

"He can do it," Guiche spoke up suddenly. Both the pirate captain and the rest of their group turned to Guiche, who looked both frightened and sure of himself. "S-Sir Shirou doesn't exaggerate. I-if he says he'll do it, he can do it."

"Well, what confidence your friends have in you," the pirate's lip curled. He pulled his arm free, or tried to, but Shirou held on for a moment longer, watching the certainty and sense of superiority drain from the pirate's face before letting him go.

The pirate rubbed his wrist tenderly. Beneath the sleeve, Shirou had no doubt that a hand-shaped bruise was already forming.

"I suppose we'll just have to —"

"SHIP APPROACHING, STARBOARD SIDE!"

The pirate captain spun around, face ghostly white. "What?!"

BANG, BANG-BANG — three cannon shots rang out, and gigantic splinters of wood suddenly erupted from the far side of the pirates' warship, which jerked sideways towards the _Marie Galante_ and smashed against its side. Beneath their feet, the ship rocked back and forth and shuddered from the collision. The pirate captain stumbled.

"Who's firing on us?!" he demanded furiously.

"DON'T KNOW, CAPTAIN! I DON'T RECOGNIZE THEIR COLORS!"

"Darling!"

"Shirou, what's going on?" Louise asked frantically.

Shirou frowned. "I don't know, Louise."

And he really didn't.

"ORDERS, CAPTAIN?!"

"Fire back!" the pirate captain roared. "Damn it, we can't lose the _Eagle_! Fire —"

BANG-BANG-BANG — another three shots rang out and slammed into the pirates' warship before they could mount a counterattack. The pirates still on the warship screamed as more splinters, some the size of a person, went flying into the air. With an ominous creak, one of the masts gave a last shudder and fell, taking another two with it.

Beneath their feet, the _Marie Galante _shuddered as well as the pirates' warship slammed into its side again. Louise reached out and grasped Shirou's arm to steady herself. He grabbed her hand to give her some stability.

"Are you alright, Master?"

"Fine," Louise mumbled. "I'm fine."

"No!" the pirate captain moaned. "The _Eagle! _The _Eagle!_"

Shirou looked back out — the pirates' warship was riddled with gigantic holes and was missing entire sections where the cannonballs had torn into it and through it like paper. It was a miracle that, holes aside, it was still in one piece. With so many great chunks gouged out of it, any other ship would probably have broken up into a bunch of tiny pieces.

But even that warship wasn't strong enough to survive with such grievous wounds — as they watched, the great black hull was starting to sink down out of the sky, dropping rapidly like a stone.

"Who?!" the pirate captain demanded. "Who attacked us?!"

"HAHAHA!"

A chill went down Shirou's spine — he recognized that laughter. And, as the black warship sank down into the clouds to reveal a large galleon in the distance, his fears were realized.

"It's her!" Louise gasped.

"Her?" Guiche parroted.

"Vallière, you know that ship?" Kirche asked bewilderedly.

The pirate captain spun around, a mad look on his face. "Tell me! If you know who that is, tell me, now!"

Louise took a step back nervously.

"Well, not by name," she hedged. "Um…That is to say, I've seen it before, but…"

"It's the same ship that attacked the academy," Wardes rescued her. "That's the ship that helped Fouquet escape with the Staff of Destruction."

In other words, their enemy was now a Heroic Spirit.

"LONG TIME NO SEE, _ARTHUR_!" the woman called. How she had the lung capacity to shout so loudly over such a distance, Shirou didn't know. "THAT WAS A NASTY TRICK YOU PULLED, LETTIN' ME THINK YOU WERE KING ARTHUR! WISH I HAD TIME TO CHEW YOU OUT, BUT I NEED TO BE KILLIN' YOU, NOW!"

The other ship's cannons came to bear, and Shirou rushed forward, ignoring the pain of his wound, to do the only thing he could in the amount of time he had.

"RHO AIAS!"

Half-made, weakened because of a lack of preparation, the shield of Ajax the Greater, sublimated into a barrier-type Noble Phantasm, appeared to protect the ship as a four-layered fortress wall. At the same time, both Wardes and the pirate captain rushed up beside him and incanted — their words tumbled together, so he couldn't tell what they said — and a barrier of wind joined the Aias.

The first cannon shot tore into the barriers and slammed into the Aias, but didn't break through. Shirou stepped back as a bruise appeared on his arm and plotted out his course of action.

He'd only have a moment, a brief reprieve as the cannons reloaded, as evidenced when the other warship had been attacked. There wouldn't be time to charge up his sword — in the first place, using something like that here was irresponsible at best — so it would have to be something fast and powerful.

Like an arrow.

The second cannonball tore straight through the first layer of the Aias and stopped at the second — Shirou grunted as a gash was torn into his left arm. Flecks of blood splattered over his cheek.

That was the curse of the Aias: the shield became as his body, so that any damage done to the shield was reflected upon him.

The third cannonball ripped the second layer apart and was stopped by the third — two of Shirou's ribs cracked, but thankfully didn't break. A quick spell was applied to his wounds — one of the first things Rin had made him learn at the Clock Tower was some healing magic to keep him from tearing his body apart like this. As easily as breathing, a Curse of Self-Healing — powerful, but nowhere near as potent as Avalon — settled on his body and started to mend the damage.

Shirou dismissed the Aias with but a thought and Traced the bow the hero Emiya had once used during that Grail War so long ago. Long, sleek, and black, it appeared in his hand like a shard of midnight.

"Step back," he ordered Wardes and the pirate captain. They both glanced at him as though he were crazy, but obeyed, taking a few steps away — enough not to get caught in whatever he was about to do, but close enough to interfere if needed.

He drew back the bowstring and took aim.

"My core is twisted in madness," Shirou incanted.

Upon the bowstring, settled like an arrow, a long sword forged into the shape of a spiral appeared — Caladbolg II, the sword of Fergus Mac Róich, modified into a screw-like appearance to be more aerodynamic. It narrowed into the form of an arrow, sleek and perfect, as he molded it with Reinforcement, and then began to glow as he flooded it with Prana.

The Noble Phantasm, for it couldn't be anything else, became suddenly fragile and dangerous. That was only natural — unlike normal objects, a Noble Phantasm did not immediately shatter when filled with too much Prana. No, instead, it transformed into a Broken Phantasm, a fragile weapon that would explode whenever it hit its target and do more damage than the original could have ever hoped to. Among the Heroic Spirits, it was considered an act of desperation to Break one's Noble Phantasm, because it could only be done once, and the Noble Phantasm was the pride of the Heroic Spirits, the crystallization of their feats and legends.

But the sword Shirou had just Traced and molded into an arrow was not his Noble Phantasm, nor was it the original; it was just a copy, a copy that could be remade again and again and Broken again and again. There was no point in worrying about doing so when it could simply be replaced.

He heard gasps from his audience, surprised exclamations, but he had already tuned them out and focused entirely upon the shot. It had to be perfect. He couldn't afford to miss.

"Caladbolg II."

The bowstring was released. The sword that had been forged into an arrow, Caladbolg II, shot forward like a bullet, twisting the air around it so that it almost seemed to warp, and the backlash from its sudden and violent acceleration nearly sent Wardes and the pirate captain flying as it sped away at hypersonic speeds.

The explosion seemed to come before the hit — the sword, transformed into an arrow, slammed into the enemy ship and exploded into a ball of golden light that engulfed it in a storm of flames like a second sun.

There was a moment where there was nothing but that brilliant flash, then the thunderous crack of the explosion rattled his ears and the ship beneath his feet, and only after the light began to fade did the shockwave finally sweep over them, sending Shirou's hair whipping about his cheeks. In the distance, the ship, missing its front half and utterly crippled, sank slowly down into the clouds like the pirates' warship.

"…By the Founder…"

Sound returned and Shirou took a breath in as the ache of his wounds returned tenfold.

"Shirou!"

"Darling, that was amazing!"

"Sir Emiya, you…you…!"

Shirou grunted.

"I could use that Water Mage right about now," he remarked sardonically.

"By the Founder," the pirate captain said, sounding suddenly a lot more eloquent as he took a few steps forward to watch the other ship fall, "I've never even _seen_ something like that before!"

"Well, _I _have," Derf spoke up.

The pirate captain startled.

"My god!" he exclaimed. "A talking sword!"

"Oh, trust me!" Derf laughed. "I'm _definitely_ not the strangest thing yeh've seen all day! After all, you just got ta see Partner Break his Noble Phantasm — compared ta _that_, I'm pretty ordinary!"

"Noble Phantasm?" the pirate parroted.

"What's a Noble Phantasm?" Kirche asked.

"It's —"

A loud thud stopped everything — a flash of red landed on the deck and sent the boards shuddering and shaking. A curtain of burgundy hair fluttered down and settled over the shoulders of a tall, slender figure, and a pair of keen blue eyes flashed as the figure — a woman showing an almost indecent amount of cleavage — stood, her entire frame quivering furiously.

"A Noble Phantasm," she seethed, "is the pride and joy of a Heroic Spirit. It symbolizes her accomplishments as a hero, the magnitude and greatness of her legend, and all the things she did that were etched into history. AND YOU JUST _DESTROYED _MINE!"

She lifted her hands, snarling, and brought her guns, a pair of flintlock pistols, to bear, but Shirou was already moving, already rushing forward, Derf in hand, and slashed upwards — her shots went wide, barrels deflected upwards and away from Shirou. The Heroic Spirit glared down at him, lips curling furiously, eyes flashing — she knew, as he did, that she wouldn't be fast enough, that before she could bring her arms back down and take aim again, he would have her skewered.

Derf came back around, steel singing as it cleaved through the air, and Shirou, ignoring the pain of his wounds, took aim at her heart. With a single blow, in close range, Shirou would end it, would defeat this threat — that was only natural. From the beginning, Shirou had known that any battle at close range with this Heroic Spirit would end in his victory.

It was simply fact. An enemy who excelled at range but was only average close up had a weakness for melee.

Something whistled through the air. Shirou aborted his attack and flung himself away from the Heroic Spirit, skidding back ten feet. A sword shot through the space he had just vacated and stabbed point-first into the deck, cutting through the boards like butter — if Shirou hadn't dodged, it would have probably cleaved his head right off his shoulders.

Shirou took several more steps backwards and placed himself defensively in front of Louise as a figure, cloaked in blue, landed in a crouch next to the sword. The figure stood slowly, blue cloak rippling like waves on the shore, and grasped the hilt of the sword with one hand. It came free easily, and the figure turned to face Shirou, sword in hand.

Another enemy.

Shirou frowned. The sword — it wasn't a sword.

The sword was — it wasn't a sword.

The sword was crafted — it wasn't a sword.

The sword was made of — it wasn't a sword.

The sword was used by — it wasn't a sword.

The sword —

The sword —

_The sword —_

**The sword —**

_**The sword —**_

The sword — was not a sword.

The frown turned into a scowl. For some reason, Shirou could not read the sword — it wasn't a sword — in the figure's hand. No, even more, everything about the sword and its wielder were shrouded — the sword itself seemed to be crafted from shadows, insubstantial and wavering, and the figure's face, hidden behind the cowl of his cloak, was cast in an unnatural darkness, despite the sunlight streaming down over the ship.

It was impossible to make out any features, let alone determine an identity. Like the sword, the figures face seemed to be sculpted from shadows and darkness, so that the features were indistinguishable from each other. Shirou had only seen something like that once before, and never in person.

Lancelot du Lac.

But the figure, who took two slow steps towards Shirou, was too short to be Lancelot and the body was too stocky. Lancelot was tall and lanky, an impressive physique of lean muscle that belied just how strong he was. This figure was not, was shorter and brawnier with a physique more befitting a modern soldier than an ancient knight.

Which meant that Shirou had no idea who it could be.

The figure suddenly stopped, staring at something past Shirou's shoulder, and tensed up. Every muscle in his body seized and became stiff and rigid, and every fiber in his body thrummed and vibrated like a plucked guitar string.

The figured hissed out something, but it was too low and too quiet for Shirou to make out what it was. Then, he tore himself violently away and turned back to the Heroic Spirit, leaving his back wide open.

Shirou knew better than to try and take advantage of it.

Despite that the figure had turned his back to Shirou, Shirou could tell he had not once dropped his guard or shown a vulnerability. Doubtlessly, the moment anyone tried to attack him, the figure would defend himself as fully and as competently as if he had never turned his back at all.

To put it simply, this was a swordsman of truly incredible caliber. Without a doubt, it could only be another Heroic Spirit.

"We're going," the figure said in a raspy voice that clearly hadn't seen much use.

The female Heroic Spirit stiffened and snarled. "_What?! _But that _bastard_ destroyed my ship!"

"Orders," the figure rasped. "From _her_."

The woman tensed up for a fraction of a second, then relaxed. "Fine," she said, sounding a lot calmer all of the sudden, "let's go."

The blue cloaked figure sheathed his sword and walked over to her, but she stopped him a moment and took a step towards Shirou, snarling.

"This isn't over, _Arthur_," she said acidly. "I _will_ see you again, and you can bet your life that I'll take my revenge for what you've done today. On my name, on the name of Sir Francis Drake, I _will_ repay you for destroying my ship!"

She spun around on her heel, and together, she and the mysterious cloaked figure both leapt over the side of the ship. Shirou crossed the distance in an instant and looked down over the side rail just in time to see the two of them land on another smaller ship, not a galleon but still a warship, and sail away beneath the clouds.

"Damn."

There was nothing more to say than that.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"…Done," Tabitha said softly and backed away.

Shirou grunted.

"My thanks," he said to her as he slipped his shirt and jacket back on. He was acutely aware of Kirche's eyes on him, roving over the contours of his chest and back and staring hungrily at each scar.

"Not necessary," Tabitha assured him.

"Maybe not," Shirou conceded, "but I'll thank you anyway."

It turned out that Tabitha was a Water Mage — or, at least, had some skill with Water Magic — and she had seen to the gash on his shoulder and his cracked ribs once they'd started sailing again. The gash would still scar (unfortunately, because it seemed like Kirche _liked_ scars), but it was healed, which was what mattered.

A real Water Mage, Tabitha had informed him, would have been able to heal it _without_ scarring.

Shirou stood back up as he fastened the last button. They'd had to redress the wound from Harpe, which has opened up again during the fight.

"I'm still not sure I believe it," the pirate captain, who, divested of his wig and his fake beard, mustache, and eye-patch, turned out to be Prince Wales himself, admitted. "I mean, I saw it all with my own eyes, and I _still_ have trouble believing it."

Around them, the crew of the _Marie Galante_ had gone back to work and was steering the ship to Newcastle, where Wales had said the remnants of the Royalists were headquartered. Wardes, Louise, and the rest of their group had gathered around Shirou as he explained the situation to Wales.

"Whether you believe it or not doesn't change what it is," Shirou said gravely.

"I know, but…by the Founder — _Pseudo Gods_?" Wales shook his head. "It's not that I don't believe you, Sir Shirou, but everything I've been taught all my life about Brimir and this world —"

"— could still be true," Shirou finished. "Or most of it, at least. I don't know enough to tell you that everything is wrong. I can only tell you what I _do_ know."

"If it helps, I can vouch for him," Derf offered.

"Vouch for him?" Prince Wales asked confusedly. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Derf claims to have known Brimir," Louise told him. "He says he's six thousand years old."

"…I see," Prince Wales hedged doubtfully.

"Oi! I can hear the doubt in yer voice, yanno!"

"Wait," Kirche said, "let me see if I understand this right. That rusty old sword is supposed to be six thousand years old?"

"Doubtful," Tabitha agreed.

"Oi!"

"You do realize that shop owners will tell you just about anything to get you to buy their stuff, right?" Kirche asked.

"Um," Guiche jumped in a little nervously. "Kirche, I don't think you should —"

"The shop owner didn't know!" Louise said angrily, face flushed. "He didn't say anything about it when we bought the sword, Zerbst!"

"Then the sword himself told you," Kirche concluded. "And you believed him?"

"Zerbst! You…! You…!"

"Miss Kirche, I would appreciate it if you didn't talk to my fiancée that way."

"Oi! Girly! You didn't have so much trouble believing me earlier!"

"That's because —"

"This sword is indeed six thousand years old," Shirou interjected seriously. "To be exact, he's five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty-one years old and has had a total of six-hundred-ninety-two different owners. Two-hundred-eighty-five of those owners were swordsmen, and of those swordsmen, two-hundred-and-three were right-handed."

Silence and looks of surprise greeted his announcement. Even Derf seemed to have been stunned into silence.

"I told you," he smiled grimly, "my specialty is swords."

"Hohoho!" Derf laughed. "I underestimated you, Partner!"

Louise turned to Kirche. "See?" she said triumphantly.

Kirche huffed. "I was just having some fun," she said sourly. "You don't have to get your feathers so ruffled."

Louise scowled.

"If we can get back to the matter at hand," Wales began, "why exactly are you here? Surely you're not here to sightsee, not with Albion currently embroiled in rebellion."

Louise startled. "Oh! Forgive me, Your Highness, I forgot!"

She rummaged around in the folds of her cloak ("Where is it? I know I had it somewhere in here.") and produced from one of her pockets the letter and ring, the Water Ruby, that Princess Henrietta had given her just a few short days ago.

"I am Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, and as Her Highness, Princess Henrietta's, personal ambassador, I have been tasked with delivering this letter to you," Louise declared formally. She held out the letter, a little crumpled, for Prince Wales to take.

"Personal ambassador?" Kirche parroted disbelievingly.

"Personal ambassador, eh?" Wales asked with a fond smile. He took the letter and carefully peeled it open. "My dear Henrietta, you haven't changed at all."

As he read, his expression changed from fond and smiling to serious and troubled. His brow slowly knitted together and his lips thinned into a line. After he was finished, he sighed and hung his head for a moment.

"Marrying?" he said wearily. "My dear, beautiful Henrietta, getting married?"

"It's her choice," Louise burst out suddenly. She flushed when Wales turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. "That is, I-I mean, she chose to get married, Your Highness. F-for the good of Tristain. Even if you don't agree with it, Your Highness, you must respect her decision."

Wales chuckled. "I can see why dear Henrietta sent you, Louise de La Vallière. You do far better as her personal ambassador than any of those stuffy politicians that are so much more common."

He sighed again.

"I have the letter she wants me to return to you," he said at length. "However, I don't have it on me — it's in Newcastle, where we're heading right now. I'm afraid you'll have to bear with me for a little while longer."

"Wait," Kirche interrupted. "Personal ambassador? _Louise_?"

Louise flushed. "Yes, Zerbst! The Princess asked this of me personally! Stop acting so surprised!"

"But why you?" Kirche asked. "I mean, you're just a student, and not a very good one at that!"

The splotches of red on Louise's cheeks grew darker and spread, and her mouth opened as she prepared a retort, but Guiche beat her to it.

"She was Princess Henrietta's childhood friend," he stated. Kirche turned to him, bewildered, and he blushed, too. "I, ah, might have…overheard them talking about it?"

Louise scowled. "I'm starting to think that Agnés woman had the right idea," she said acidly. Guiche flinched and glanced again at Shirou, as though expecting to be skewered. It was really starting to get annoying.

"Regardless of the reasoning," Shirou added, "Louise was chosen as the Princess's representative. Whether or not you agree with the choice doesn't change anything, Kirche."

It was a little harsh, but no part of it was untrue.

"Just so," Wardes agreed. "It is not your place to question the Princess, Miss Kirche."

"NEWCASTLE IN SIGHT!"

Wales smiled. "Enough of this seriousness. Come. There's something I have to show you."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The sprawling castle that was Newcastle ran along the edge of the Albion island, situated rather precariously close to the cliff. Within the walls, which were a patchwork of dull gray stones that look solid enough to withstand even the most virulent of siege weapons, was a city that had clearly once been much larger and more populous, but appeared to have been whittled down over the course of the rebellion.

But even more striking than the castle was the burned and obliterated wreck that was lying on the open ground about half a mile outside the castle, a blackened and charred husk of what had once been an enormous ship that could dwarf even the _Eagle_ that Wales had been sailing upon before. It looked as though someone had blown it up with some sort of missile, because the pieces that remained, those that hadn't been reduced to ash, were the brittle black-gray of charcoal.

Shirou could imagine what it must have looked like before, a truly gigantic warship with over a hundred cannons and at least twice as many sails as the _Eagle_ had had. The hull would've been painted black, and the deck would've been a bright, honey brown with pure white sails that fluttered in the wind. It would have been an elegant work of art, a ship of premium design.

In other words, it would have been a state-of-the-art ship with tons of new technology painstakingly crafted to be the pride of a fleet.

And all that remained of that ship was a broken shell.

"Amazing," Louise breathed from beside him.

"Who could do such a thing?" Guiche murmured incredulously.

"Oh my," Kirche whispered, shivering. "Such _power_."

"Incredible," Tabitha agreed.

"The _Royal Sovereign_," Wales informed them. "It was stolen from us, from our navy, and repurposed and renamed _Lexington_ by the rebels in honor of their first victory. It kept a constant blockade on Newcastle from the sky, firing upon us every now and again just to let us know that they hadn't left."

"Attrition," Wardes commented absently. "They must have intended to starve you out."

"How clever," Guiche muttered.

"Probably," Wales agreed. "We had simply gotten used to it, coming and going through a port beneath the island instead of trying to make it past that ship. But a few days ago, in the dead of night after everyone had gone to sleep, someone or something attacked it and destroyed it in one blow."

He pointed out at the blackened husk. "_That_ is all that's left."

"Someone or something?" Shirou asked, a suspicion forming.

"What could do _that_?"

"No one knows for sure," Wales told him. "Some claimed to have seen a flash before it was destroyed, like a blade of sunlight. Others said they saw a shooting star rain down from the sky and strike it — they called it 'Brimir's Wrath.' My advisors think these are just preposterous rumors and that someone must have snuck aboard with explosives and sacrificed his life to destroy it."

"But you think otherwise?" Shirou concluded.

"I didn't know what to think," Wales admitted. "But what you told me before…I think now that it must have been one of those Heroic Spirits you were talking about, and that the attack that destroyed the _Royal Sovereign_ was one of these Noble Phantasms."

"It's possible," Shirou affirmed. He could think of several different Noble Phantasms that could do the job; Caladbolg, Gáe Bolg, Excalibur Galatine, Bellerophon, Brahamstra and Brahmastra Kundala, Gram, Vasavi Shakti — really, any Anti-Army Noble Phantasm possessed enough power to destroy a ship like that. "There are a number of Noble Phantasms that fit the criteria, so it's difficult to say. Anything definitive?"

Wales shook his head. "Only the rumors. Whoever they are, though, we owe them for removing such a large threat, but I fear it is only a temporary reprieve. The loss of the _Royal Sovereign_ must have the rebels confused for now, but when they pull themselves together, an entire fleet will be sent here to replace it."

Shirou said nothing — rather, there wasn't much of anything for him to say. Deep inside, he wanted to offer his assistance to take down the rebels, that he would annihilate the enemy for them if they so desired, and like that, he could save this Prince and his dying government.

But how much did he know? In taking the Prince's side, what guarantee was there that he was taking the side that would inevitably lead to the least bloodshed?

Ignorant of these people, ignorant of this world, ignorant of who was right and who was wrong, how could Shirou offer help to what very well may be a tyrant?

Moreover, if the Prince's suspicions were right, then there was yet another Heroic Spirit in play, and Shirou had no idea who it could possibly be. Enemy? Friend? It could even have been Perseus — unlikely though it seemed, Shirou didn't know enough about the motivations of the Heroic Spirits and their benefactor to know what side they would take or why. It was impossible to know who was trustworthy in Albion, if indeed anyone was.

What Shirou did know was that Louise needed him. And so, at the risk of sacrificing so many other lives, he would protect her and follow her.

In his situation, there really wasn't much other choice.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

There was a murmuring crowd awaiting them at the port when they tethered themselves up. Wales was the first down the gangplank, with Shirou, Louise, Wardes, and their group following shortly behind. From amongst the crowd, a tall and wizened old man came forward and greeted them.

"What about the _Eagle,_ Your Highness?"

"Alas, the _Eagle _was lost, Paris," Wales greeted the old man. "When I met our guests —" he gestured to Shirou and the others — "we were attacked quite suddenly and without warning. I'm afraid she was sunk. Doubtlessly, her remains are resting at the bottom of the ocean by now."

"Truly?"

"I'm afraid so."

"The _Eagle_!" Paris, the old man, moaned. "Our finest ship!"

"Our enemies seem only to multiply," Wales told him regretfully. "We exchanged the _Eagle_ for some Sulfur and our new friends, as well as a new enemy. Ah — but that isn't something to discuss here. The King should hear of it first."

"And with the impending attack," Paris lamented. "At the very least, the sulfur will come in handy tomorrow. These old bones of mine are trembling with anticipation."

Wales clasped Paris by the shoulder and smiled. "With our last breath, we will etch our struggle into history. These rebels will learn not to underestimate the King and his men, nor the royal family of Albion."

Paris smiled back and turned to Shirou and the others. "And who are these folk?"

"Ambassadors on business for Tristain's Princess Henrietta," Wales explained smoothly. "They are here as representatives of Tristain's crown."

"Paris Chamberlain, at your service," Paris introduced himself. He offered his hand to Shirou. "I must say, I've never seen an ambassador like you, sir. If you don't mind my saying so, you're a bit unusual looking."

Shirou coughed awkwardly and gestured to Louise, who was flushed with a mixture between embarrassment and anger.

"My Master is the ambassador," Shirou clarified. "The Princess picked her personally."

"Oh!" Paris blinked. "My apologies, miss, I'm afraid I never expected Tristain to send such a young woman as an ambassador."

"It's fine," Louise ground out as politely as she could manage.

"This is Sir Shirou, Miss Louise's protector," Wales introduced him. "I've found him most knowledgeable about this new enemy we face."

"Pleasure to meet you."

"And this is Sir Wardes, an agent of the Crown and Captain of Tristain's Griffin Knights."

"How do you do?"

"I'm well, thank you."

"And the others are Miss Kirche of Germania, Miss Tabitha, and Sir Guiche de Gramont, son of the famous General de Gramont."

Wales pointed them each out in turn.

"Welcome to Albion," Paris said pleasantly, "or what's left of it, at any rate."

"I'll see you at the feast, Paris," Wales said. "In the meantime, I'd like to take care of this business. I'll leave the unloading of the sulfur up to you."

"As you say, Your Highness."

Wales led them up the port and into the castle, stopping for a moment to have a short, friendly chat with the guards at the front gate, then led them further into the castle and down past the kitchen, where his room was located.

It turned out to be rather ordinary-looking, very plain and utilitarian, which Shirou figured was only natural — in war, you couldn't be picky about how nice or how well furnished your room was. It was your room — you slept in it, you had moments of privacy in it, but it wasn't very personalized, and there was no point in personalizing it when the money might be better spent securing supplies.

The Prince sat down on one of the two chairs and pulled a long chain off his neck — a small key dangled from it, which Wales used to unlock a strongbox on the desk. Shirou could make out a portrait of Henrietta set in a place of honor inside of it.

The Prince pulled out a well-worn letter that had clearly been read several times, placed a kiss upon the wrinkled and frayed paper, and offered it over to Louise, who took it.

"This is the letter Henrietta asked I return," he explained. "I entrust it to your care."

"I will take care of it," Louise promised solemnly.

"That's it?" Kirche hissed in the background. "All this over a _letter_?"

"Shh!" Guiche shushed her.

"Important," Tabitha agreed quietly.

"The _Marie Galante_ will be resupplied tonight and leave tomorrow before the battle," Wales informed her. "I ask that you leave upon it. There's no point in you dying with us, tomorrow."

Louise's brow furrowed and her lips thinned thoughtfully.

"Your Highness, you're…" she began, "that is to say…you plan on dying tomorrow?"

"Yes," Wales said matter-of-factly. "I have only 300 men here in this castle. The armies of Reconquista number at least a hundred times ours. Victory in that scenario is impossible, so the only remaining option is to evacuate as many of the civilians as we can and go down fighting. Reconquista will not be satisfied in this country until they have killed Albion's Royal Family, and tomorrow, they shall do exactly that."

"But," Louise's brow furrowed, "the letter from Hen…I mean, the letter from the Princess. Doesn't it ask you to —"

She gestured with one hand.

"Even if it did, I wouldn't," Wales told her solemnly. "But it doesn't. Henrietta may not like it, but she understands what it means to be royalty, to place oneself in the service of the kingdom. She knows that there isn't any other option for me but to die for my people."

"But…"

"There is nowhere left to run and nowhere left to hide. If we must die anyway, then I can think of no better way to die than fighting for our people and what we believe in."

"But…" Louise turned to Shirou. "Shirou…!"

For a moment, Shirou said nothing.

He knew what she was asking. He knew what she wanted. He knew what she wanted to hear and what she wanted him to say.

And he was tempted. Oh, he was so very sorely tempted. He knew, as Louise knew, that it was within his power to save the Prince, and perhaps even defeat the army that was coming to obliterate them. He knew that he could save all these people from death, that he could choose a side and make a difference, save lives, save a country.

But…

But…what about Louise?

Going into battle like this, fighting a large army without holding back — that meant he would have to take his attention away from Louise and leave her unprotected. What if, in the process, she was hurt, injured, or killed? It didn't even need to be a deliberate attack — simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time would be enough. A stray arrow, a stray spell, collateral damage; it would all be enough to kill her without meaning to kill her.

And for that matter…it would be the perfect opportunity for Perseus to strike.

Perseus, who had proven he had no qualms with being sneaky and underhanded.

The risks outweighed the gains.

So, he said: "Our mission was to retrieve this letter and report back to Princess Henrietta. That was the mission we were given. If we stay here and help, there is the inevitable chance of failure, in which case the mission will also fail and Tristain will have to face Reconquista alone."

He watched her face fall, but he steeled himself and continued. "If we leave tomorrow before the fighting starts, we can make it back without endangering the success of the mission, in which case we will have achieved what we set out to do."

It was the logical choice — choose the path that could guarantee the best possibility of success. Rather than fighting a battle you could not hope to win, or even one that you might win but the odds were stacked against you, choose the best possible choice for victory.

To put it a bit more simply, Shirou had no doubt that he could annihilate even an army thirty-thousand strong, but it would be a pyrrhic victory. Even if everything went as planned, there was still the undeniable fact that the land left behind would be too scarred and too damaged to be of any use.

In other words, he could destroy the army, but it would ruin the land they marched upon.

What would be left for the people of Albion to live upon if that happened? No, letting the Prince and three hundred soldiers die was better than slaying thirty-thousand men and scorching the land barren.

"When did you get so cynical?" a voice that sounded like Rin asked.

What other choice was there? Shirou thought helplessly. There was no path to victory that did not require some kind of sacrifice.

"Shirou…" Louise whispered, looking betrayed.

"He's right," Wales told her. "Even if you could help, even if you could change the battle in our favor, it would simply be one battle. Reconquista won't stop — they'll keep going until either we're dead or they are, and to mount a campaign against their forces is not something a girl your age should be doing, Miss Vallière."

He paused and smiled at her sadly. "All of us have resigned ourselves to dying in this fight. We have neither the manpower nor the resources to keep fighting. This battle will be the end of us, whether we win or not. Cromwell has made sure of that."

"Then…!" Louise said, sounding frustrated. "Then come back with us to Tristain! There's no need for you to die here —"

Wales shook his head of blonde hair.

"I cannot abandon my people," he said firmly. "Even if you beg me for the rest of the night, Louise Francoise, my answer will remain the same. It isn't my destiny to return with you. I was born for Albion and so I will die for Albion. Tomorrow, my people will be cut down, and I will be cut down with them."

"But the Princess!"

"Henrietta will understand."

"But…!"

"Louise," Wardes interrupted, "such is unbecoming of a Noble of Tristain."

Louise scowled and flushed but didn't speak, only looked furiously away.

Wales smiled. "Well. Enough of this depressing talk. There is a feast to be had tonight, the last of its kind to be had in this sort of company, so I would be honored if you would join us."

But Shirou was not hungry.

No, there was no way he could eat with the feelings of unease and guilt rolling around in his belly.

Because there had to be a middle ground. Back then, so many years ago, he had said that he wouldn't stop striving, that he would pursue his impossible dream no matter what, no matter how hard things got. He would make it happen, even if it hurt, even if he stumbled.

Except here, he couldn't. He wanted to help. He wanted to make a miracle that could turn the tide in Wales' favor. He wanted to save them all.

But he couldn't.

No, from the beginning, there hadn't been a way to save Wales from Reconquista. After all…

How could you save someone who didn't want to be saved?

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_Servant:_ Sir Francis Drake

_Class:_ ?

_Strength:_ C+

_Mana:_ B

_Endurance:_ B+

_Agility:_ B+

_Luck:_ EX

**Class Skills**:

_Magic Resistance:_ D (Cancel Single-Action spells ("Dot level"). Magic Resistance of the same degree of an amulet that rejects magical energy. Since she doesn't have Magic Resistance of her own, her Magic Resistance is low.)

_Mental Interference: _B (The level of compulsion necessary for unruly and dangerous beasts that would normally kill their Masters. It can twist even the likes of a manticore or a griffin into an obedient follower. At this level, distortion of the personality is inevitable.)

**Personal Skills:**

_Voyager of the Storm: _A+

_Pioneer of the Stars: _EX

_Military Tactics: _B

**Noble Phantasms:**

_**Name:**_ Golden Wild Hunt

_Title:_ The Night of the Golden Hind and the Storm

_Rank:_ A+

_Type: _Anti-Army

_Range: _20-40

_Number of Targets: _20 Ship Forward Deployment

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**First up, the issue of the Familiar Runes and what they mean. For those of you who aren't well-versed in the ZnT/FoZ world, the runes that appear on each familiar when they're made into familiars have several different effects. The other effects aren't important right now, and the finer details are on the forum. This is what's important:**

**All familiars are afflicted with Mental Interference that makes them more in tune with their masters. Depending upon the familiar, it might be a gentle compulsion that makes it easier for the familiar to get along with his/her master. The more dangerous and/or feral a familiar is, however, the more powerful the compulsion has to be to keep them from killing their masters. **

**The compulsion Shirou, as a Void Familiar, is under is equivalent to the compulsion needed to tame a fully mature Rhyme Dragon, a creature that would normally be rather opposed to humans in general and likely inclined to view them as quite a bit lower on the food chain. This compulsion, though it might sound simple, is rather complex and multi-faceted. The main force of the compulsion is basically, "Make Louise happy," but there are many other parts to it. If, therefore, you feel that Shirou is acting a bit strange, then there are a couple of different possible explanations, but "the Runes did it" is a good bet.**

**Here are the more in-depth answers: www. fanfiction topic /118200 /94766235 /1 / Mechanics-of-Miracle-of-Zero**

**Tabitha's Water Magic: in canon, I'm pretty sure Tabitha can use Ice magic, which is a mix of wind and water. By definition, then, she has to have some ability with water magic, which doesn't necessarily mean she can heal anything, no, but given what Tabitha's been through, learning a few healing spells to patch herself up is only logical.**

**Another thing, in case this wasn't completely and totally obvious: normal Grail War Servant classes don't apply. Perseus is **_**NOT**_** a Rider-class Servant. Drake is **_**NOT**_** a Rider-class Servant. If you see another Servant, another Heroic Spirit, please do **_**not**_** make assumptions about his or her class, because the Halkeginia Grail **_**doesn't work that way**_**. As Shirou stated in Chapter 1, he wasn't taken and stuffed into a tiny container the way it works in FSN with the Fuyuki Grail, he was summoned at **_**full power**_**. The Halkeginia Grail (even though we only really call it a Grail for convenience's sake) summons the familiar at full power, then adds the class afterwards — **_**to put it simply, the classes are more like "clothes," **_**because **_**they only add to what that Heroic Spirit already has**_**. **

**With that said, Drake and Perseus **_**do**_** have a class, I just haven't figured out what it is, yet. Unfortunately, the Familiar of Zero world doesn't come with a ready-made familiar class system, not including the Void Familiars, so I have to make everything up.**

**Also, this isn't really the place or the time I wanted to be asking this, but for an upcoming project, called "Fate/Noble Apatheia," I'm in need of about eight more Masters. If you have a canon Nasuverse character you'd like to see show up, or if you'd like to submit an OC for consideration, then take a look at the forum to see the character sheet format and either post your OC in the "Fate/Noble Apatheia" section or PM it to me. **

**On a related note, I intend to publish both a Fate/Miracle Material book as a companion for this story and a Fate/Noble Material book as a companion for F/NA, but I'm in need of illustrators. If you're interested in working on it, then I'm interested in hearing from you. Of course, since this is all non-profit, none of us will be getting paid for it.**

**As always, read, review, enjoy.**


	7. Lapse From Virtue - Part Two

**Miracle of Zero: Kingdom of the Forsaken  
By: **James D. Fawkes

**Chapter VII: Lapse From Virtue — Part Two  
— o.0.O.O.0.o — **

The party was held in the great hall, a large, high-ceilinged room decorated with musty, ill-kept banners displaying what must have been the royal family's crest. Once, they had probably been a brilliant gold color, but age and lack of care had reduced them to a dusty, dirty brown. Shirou imagined that, amongst everything else that these people had gone through, taking care of the drapery must have been of little concern.

The rest of the room, however, seemed to have been cleaned neatly in honor of their last feast, and was festooned with what remained of the finest linens and silverware. Great gold goblets, encrusted with large jewels that twinkled likes stars, had been set aside for the King and Prince, and silver goblets, etched with some of the finest scrollwork Shirou had ever seen, had been placed out for everyone else. Each fork, knife, spoon, and plate bore the royal emblem, and every bottle of the oldest and best wine sat uncorked for all to enjoy.

At the back of the room, sitting upon his throne, there was an old man who could only be the reigning king. He eyed them all with an unreadable expression, radiating…something? Perhaps approval. Yes, he seemed like he approved of the merrymaking going on, the final radiant huzzah.

It was the last party of its kind that they would see, and each and every person in the hall knew it. And yet, despite the burden of that knowledge, despite knowing that tomorrow would be their last day and that these were their last hours, they all carried on merrily as though they hadn't a care in the world.

It was almost painful to look at.

"Are you really willing to let all of these people die?" Rin's voice asked him seriously.

Shirou closed his eyes, let out a breath through his nose, and silently grieved for each and every person in front of him, so brilliant and bright, that he could not save.

"Louise must come first," he said solemnly. "If her safety means sacrificing all of these people…then yes."

She made a strange noise in the back of her throat.

"So the King of Miracles," Rin said, "can't make a miracle here?"

Something inside of him resonated with her words.

_But Louise_, something else protested.

_Save them_, the first part demanded with a presence like steel.

_Louise_, the second part, all fluid and emptiness, insisted.

_Save them!_

_Louise!_

_**Save them!**_

_**Louise!**_

_**SAVE THEM.**_

_**LOUISE.**_

_**SAVE THEM!**_

_**LOUISE!**_

His head spun around and around, and his skull seemed suddenly two sizes too small to contain his brain. The world was swirling about him like a merry-go-round, and it was only by reaching out to press one hand against the cool flagstones of the castle wall that he managed to remain standing.

"There will come a time when you find yourself in my place, he said," Rin reminded Shirou. "Have you, Shirou? Is this the moment where you forsake your ideals? Heroic Spirits are those who change fate and bring about miracles. With the strength, resolve, and courage to match even those brilliant existences, can't you make one, too?"

He…wanted to — _save them_.

He…wanted to — _protect Louise._

He breathed. "I…"

"Is something the matter, Sir Shirou?" Wardes voice interrupted.

Shirou latched onto his voice like an anchor and used it to drive the indecision away from the forefront of his mind. Not now. There would be time for such a decision later.

"…It's nothing," he said, though he suspected from the look on Wardes' face that he had taken a few seconds too long to answer. "Just thinking. About how all of these people are celebrating so raucously, despite knowing what awaits them tomorrow."

Wardes hummed and gave a nod.

"They celebrate joyfully, putting off the horror of their fates to fully enjoy the present," Wardes commented. "In some ways, it is admirable…but in others, it is incredibly sad."

"A fire burns brightest just as it's about to be snuffed out," Kirche muttered with a shiver.

"Truly," Guiche agreed.

"This isn't right," Louise murmured restlessly. "We could…we could _save_ them…"

"And doom the rest of the countryside," Wardes told her. "The rebels won't stop until they find and eliminate whatever remains of the royal family and their supporters. If we save them now, and with such odds against them, it isn't even _close_ to a guarantee, then all those innocents along the country who live without participating in this war will become targets as Reconquista tries to drive out the Royalists. It will be a long and bloody war where thousands would be killed if the rebels so much as _thought_ they were harboring the Prince and his allies."

He shook his head. "Better for the Prince and the Royalists to die here, with glory and honor, and end the conflict before innocents are involved."

Louise's brow furrowed. "But," she began and looked at Shirou.

But Shirou didn't have anything to say to her — how could he, when he was still conflicted himself?

_Save them._

_Protect Louise._

Wales appeared at that moment, heralded by joyous greetings from the partygoers and rapturous sighs from the younger women — it seemed he was rather popular. Shirou watched as he greeted everyone he passed with a kind and generous smile and made his way through the throng to the throne.

The king tried to rise to greet him, but, old and gray and frail, nearly collapsed on his wobbly knees. Several people in the crowd laughed.

"Your Majesty! Now isn't the time to fall!"

"Indeed! Wait until tomorrow!"

The king didn't seem insulted and let loose his own laugh, smiling broadly at the room.

"It's nothing!" he insisted jokingly. "My legs simply went numb from sitting too long!"

Wales approached the king and helped him to his feet. The king wobbled a little, but with Wales supporting him, he managed to keep himself up. He drew his chest out as much as he could manage, and suddenly, the chuckles died away.

The king was about to give a speech, Shirou realized.

"By now, most of you have heard that Reconquista will be bringing their full might down upon us tomorrow," the king began thunderously. "No doubt, they want revenge for the insult paid to them by the destruction of that wondrous ship, their _"Lexington" _— that they stole from us, no less!"

Cries of agreement rose up among the crowd. If nothing else, Shirou mused, the king could speak rather well.

"You have fought for and followed this frail old king of yours as bravely and unwaveringly as any I have had the pleasure to know," the king went on. "We have made those cowardly rebels pay for every inch of ground they have stolen from us — we fought courageously in battle after battle, taking as many of them as we could before we were forced here, where we could only hide and wait while they amassed their forces to finally silence us.

"But tomorrow will not be a battle," the king said gravely. "We are but a mere three hundred. Reconquista brings to bear nearly three full divisions. It will not be a fight we can win — no, it will be nothing less than a one-sided slaughter. We will be like sheep fighting a pack of wolves; there will be nothing we can do to save ourselves once the battle begins."

He paused to let it all sink in. Shirou doubted that most of the civilians truly understood exactly what they would be facing.

"But it's asking too much, I think, for you civilians to risk your lives in a battle we can't win," the king continued at length. "Thus, tomorrow morning, the Tristain vessel, _Marie Galante_, will take the women and children and anyone who wants a future away from this forsaken island. For those who decide to leave, I will not think lesser of you for pursuing a future."

For a moment, only silence greeted him. There was a quiet rumbling amongst the crowd. Then —

"Nice speech."

There was no time to react — the voice that came out of nowhere set into motion three things simultaneously.

At once, a figure dropped down from the ceiling, cloak billowing, to deal a debilitating blow to the king, who had only enough time to push Wales out of the way before a sickle sword carved open his chest mercilessly. Blood splattered all over the mask, which was painted with tribal lines and etched in the likeness of a face.

Perseus.

At the same moment, another figure, cloaked in blue, landed in the center of the crowd as though he had appeared from thin air and rushed forward, sending people flying about as he dashed towards Shirou and his group. His face was hidden by a hood and his sword was cloaked in shadows — no, it was _made_ of shadows.

The mystery man from the fight earlier.

At the far end of the hall, another figure, masked and lacking the distinct feel and presence of a Heroic Spirit, cast a blast of wind with a flick of his wand-sword, bowling people over as he strode casually towards Wales, who was staring at his father, the king, in shock.

There was only one real choice for Emiya Shirou to make.

He burst into motion — Harpe came down again, but Shirou had already flung himself between the blade and Wales, using Derf to deflect the strike up and away.

_Save them_.

Shirou's free hand leapt immediately to his sword, his main sword, the Last Phantasm that had been given to him by the Lady of the Lake, and he drew it from its sheath, stabbing the pommel into Perseus' armored chest.

Hard.

Perseus stumbled backwards and Shirou incanted swiftly — "RHO AIAS!"

In an instant, a four-layer barrier, the crystallization of the legend of Ajax the Greater blocking Hector of Troy's unblockable spear, appeared between Perseus and the rest of the hall, pinning him between the throne and the back wall.

It would not hold long.

Naturally, he'd rushed it, so it wasn't as powerful as it should be, and Perseus, as a god in human flesh, possessed enough power to simply punch through it within minutes, but Shirou didn't need it to last too long anyway.

Shirou fully unsheathed Escalvatine, swapping it to his dominant hand and grasping Derf with his left. He spun around, stepping carefully over Wales to meet the blue-cloaked swordsman with Derflinger — the resounding clang of the two swords meeting echoed throughout the hall, a loud boom as two swordsmen whose blows could shake the earth met, stalemated for a moment, then Shirou's superior strength sent the figure flying backwards.

Out in the rest of the hall, the mages in the crowd had started slinging spells at the masked mage who had appeared at the far end, but he deflected it all as easily as breathing and flung his own spells back at them. To attack like that, so effortlessly — Shirou wasn't an expert, but he imagined that it was probably at least a Triangle Mage, probably a Square.

The party room had become a battlefield.

With his reprieve, Shirou spun around to his group, to Louise and the others.

"Wardes!" he roared at Wardes. "Get them out of —"

But Wardes, who had turned to look at him at that moment and had started to open his mouth, was hit by a stray spell from somewhere in the chaos, had a single second to look surprised, and then…vanished. The moment the spell hit, Wardes vanished as though he had been nothing but an illusion.

Shirou's brain tried to make sense of that, and he likely would have remained ignorant if the mage on the other end of the hall had not staggered at the exact moment when the fake Wardes had been dispelled.

All of the little bits and pieces fell together. Everything that Shirou hadn't considered suspicious at the time, like how Wardes hadn't been surprised when Shirou told the group about Harpe's curse, like how a soldier like Wardes had tried to insist on something that would endanger the mission just so that he could spend the night with his fiancée, suddenly came to the forefront of his mind as evidence to damn Wardes as a traitor.

Anger, hot and furious, and betrayal, cold and chilling in his belly, shot through Shirou. His grip on his swords tightened.

Shirou wanted to kill him. He wanted to flay that bastard alive for betraying Louise, for betraying his country, for being involved in something that would probably end hundreds or even thousands of lives.

But now was not the time. Now was not the time. There were other things that needed to be taken care of.

"Guiche!" he barked instead. Guiche startled. "Make as many Valkyries as you can! Evacuate as many people as possible to the ship and get ready to leave! Go!"

"But Sir Shirou!" Guiche protested. "We can't leave you —"

"GO!" Shirou roared, patience gone.

Guiche flinched, but pulled out his wand — Shirou didn't see what happened after that, because he had to turn around again to meet the blue-cloaked swordsman a second time and push him back a second time.

But this time, Shirou didn't need a moment of reprieve. He didn't need to take a second to order an evacuation. Instead, he could keep going, so he flung himself forward as the blue-cloaked swordsman landed and swung down with Derflinger — he was blocked, then deflected, and Derflinger bit into the floor beneath their feet. A great crater was left behind as chunks of the floor flew up and out.

Shirou scowled. He was fighting an expert, then.

The shadow sword came around and Shirou met it with Escalvatine, sending sparks of lit Prana dancing around. The shadow sword flew backwards, as was only natural — Shirou was stronger than this enemy, and they both knew it — but instead of stumbling or falling off balance, the swordsman maneuvered fluidly with the motion and came around again, swinging. Shirou blocked.

The figure growled. "In the way," he rasped angrily.

Shirou snarled. "That's…_my_ line!"

He planted his foot in the figure's chest and pushed as hard as he could — the swordsman was sent soaring backwards, skidding and stumbling across the floor as he tried to halt his momentum and wheezing from Shirou's kick.

But it wasn't a reprieve for Shirou, because the moment the blue swordsman had been pushed away, a familiar buildup of magical energy surged from the masked mage — the traitor, Wardes — and Shirou glanced over to see him aiming, not at Shirou, but at Guiche and Louise, who were standing at the far end of the hall and guiding the screaming civilians to safety.

In that instant, Shirou had two choices. First, he could fling something at Wardes to stop the spell, but even if he unleashed his fastest attack in that instant, Wardes would already have gotten his spell off and it would surely hit its target — _fatally_. Second, he could sacrifice his utility and block the spell with something that could absorb or redirect it, like the sword in his hand.

Time slowed down. Shirou hefted Derflinger, grasping the hilt in such a way that would make for the best throw. Wardes' mouth curled around the final syllables of his incantation. Across the room, Guiche looked over at that moment and saw what Wardes was about to do.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Wardes finished his spell and lightning lanced out from the tip of his wand-sword. Across the room, Guiche flung himself in the path of the spell, arms spread wide to cover Louise and the civilians as best as he could. Derflinger whistled through the air, a glint of silvery steel.

Guiche shut his eyes and grimaced. The lightning spell lit up brightly and carved across the distance. In a moment, it would reach Guiche, who had heroically placed himself in its path in order to protect Louise and the unprotected civilians, and kill him instantly.

At the last second, Derflinger swerved into its path and absorbed the spell, sinking into the flagstones halfway to the hilt.

The reprieve was over. The blue swordsman rushed back to Shirou, who blocked with Escalvatine and struck back with another blow that echoed throughout the room. He was blocked, too, and they struck at each other again and again — Shirou was just the slightest bit faster and the slightest bit stronger, but the figure in front of him was moving swiftly and easily as though he could predict where Shirou would strike.

It was maddening — Shirou could compare it to fighting Saber, whose powerful Instinct gave her near-precognitive abilities in battle. No matter where he swung, no matter what he did, the figure across from him seemed to know exactly how and when to block and exactly how much strength was needed to do so at exactly which angle to prevent himself from being overwhelmed.

The figure fought with the same level of skill as Lancelot, but could not possibly be Lancelot. But who else was so famed for his skill in combat? Who else was could wield the sword so well that his skills could make up for even his physical disadvantages? Who else possessed a Noble Phantasm that hid his identity so completely that even the true nature of his sword was shrouded?

Damn it — if he could just know who he was facing, he could make a plan accordingly. If he just knew his enemy, he could pull out the right Noble Phantasm to defeat him or use the right skill to overwhelm him. He needed to see who it was. He needed —

"Show me your face!" Shirou snarled and swept out with one hand.

The figure ducked, but not quickly enough — the wind behind Shirou's hand blew back the hood, revealing the face.

But Shirou only had a moment. The second the figure realized his identity had been compromised, he leapt back and away, and Shirou caught only a glimpse of black hair and blue eyes before the hood had been pulled back up and the features shrouded once more.

BOOM — the castle suddenly rumbled and shook beneath their feet. Shirou looked back; Perseus, rather than bust through the shield Shirou had constructed to box him in, had simply destroyed the wall behind him instead. With a flutter of the tiny wings on his sandals, he fled back and out of the enormous hole he had created.

Across the room, lightning flashed from Wardes' wand-sword again, but a bronze Valkyrie leapt in the way of the spell and was destroyed. Shirou looked back over at the blue-cloaked swordsman, prepared to continue the fight, but he was gone, had vanished from the spot where he'd been just a moment before —

"Aaaaaaah!"

The scream tore out across the hall and everyone stopped and turned to look. The wand-sword tumbled from Wardes' fingers, who was staring, as transfixed and surprised as Shirou was, at the shadow sword protruding from his chest.

…It didn't make any sense. Shirou tried to wrap his head around the facts before him, but no matter how he approached it, it seemed as impossible as a math problem that said two plus two equaled sixteen.

The blue-cloaked swordsman had stabbed Wardes through the chest, and Shirou couldn't understand why.

"Wh-what?" Neither, it seemed, could Wardes. "B-but…allies!"

Wardes coughed violently and specks of blood flew from his lips. The front of his gray robes was darkening to an ominous black.

"N-no," Wardes gripped the sword protruding from his chest as though to pull it out, ignoring how the blade cut into his fingers. "I-I was…going to rule the world!"

The sword was pulled free — the blue-cloaked figure savagely yanked it out of Wardes chest and with cold, practiced efficiency, flicked the blood off the blade.

Wardes stumbled forward and fell, first to his knees and then to the floor, eyes wide and grasping at his wound as red blood spilled over the stones. The blue-cloaked figure watched him dispassionately.

"Revenge," he rasped.

"C-can't die," Wardes gasped, unhearing. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but couldn't. "R-Reconquista…H-holy Land…I was…g-going to rule the world…!"

He looked up and reached out for Louise with one shaking hand. "L-Louise! M-my Louise! I-I…!"

The shadow sword came down mercilessly and stabbed straight through Wardes' neck, severing the spine — the outstretched hand spasmed once, twice, then the entire body fell limp.

Dead.

Shirou was frozen in his spot, unsure of what to do. The blue-cloaked figure had just killed Wardes, who was supposedly his ally, after having kept Shirou busy while Wardes bowled through the mages that had been gathered for the party. Where did that put them, then? Was the blue-cloaked figure a double agent working for Shirou's side? Was it simply a personal disagreement? What was it? Where did they go from here?

"She warned me you might do this."

Perseus, unmasked, dropped down from the ceiling and landed next to the blue-cloaked figure, who didn't seem at all bothered by his presence. Shirou tensed and prepared himself to fight.

But Perseus ignored him and simply looked down at Wardes' corpse, scowling. He lifted a foot and kicked the body only hard enough to roll it over, revealing Wardes' face, permanently etched into a rictus of terror, and the two gaping holes — one in the neck, and one in the chest. Blood was splattered all over the pale cheeks and mingled in with the gray beard and hair.

"Well," Perseus hedged, "I suppose he wasn't especially useful since his cover was blown, anyway. She'll probably be upset with you, though."

Unlike Drake, who had reacted as though the mysterious "she" who had been mentioned three times, now, was some sort of god to be worshipped, the blue-cloaked figure seemed entirely unbothered by the idea that whoever "she" was might be displeased with Wardes' death.

"Worth it," he rasped.

Perseus gave a long, dramatic sigh.

"She won't be pleased," he said as he bent down to pick up Wardes' body, "but at this rate, we're going to be pushed back. Achieving the second half of our objective would be difficult, at best. We should retreat and regroup."

He hefted Wardes' body up onto his shoulder and reached into the folds of his cloak for something else, only to pull out a roughly-hewn green crystal about the size of his palm.

"You've won for now, fake hero," Perseus said to Shirou. The blue-cloaked figure reached out and laid his hand over the crystal in Perseus'. "But we won't underestimate you like this again. Next time, we'll bring a more suitable enemy for you to play with."

The crystal, hidden behind Perseus' and the figure's hands, glowed brightly — and then, quite suddenly, they were gone, leaving behind only the drying pool of blood on the floor.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

"My father," Wales said hollowly. "My people. Gone. Dead. _Murdered._"

At the end of it, a meager ninety-three people had survived the battle, most of them civilians. Everyone else had been slaughtered, killed mercilessly beneath the cutting wind and raging lightning Wardes had used to destroy even the best mages in the group. Their corpses, some sliced to bits and others fried by electricity, had been strewn all over the castle floor. The guards, they had discovered on their way out, had all been cut down silently — Shirou suspected it had been Harpe.

No one had walked away from it unaffected. Wales had had tears dripping down his face, crying silently for all those who had been slain. Guiche had emptied his stomach on the ground, unable to look at all of the mutilated bodies. Kirche had fallen silent and lost her usual vibrancy, hands shaking. Even Tabitha had solemnly put away her omnipresent book.

Of course, Shirou knew. How could anyone look upon such senseless violence and not be moved?

The only one who had not seemed disturbed by it all had been Louise, who had only looked about with a surreal look on her face, as though the lengths to which people could be driven had only then hit home for her. But she hadn't cried, she hadn't revisited her last meal, she hadn't quivered and shaken like a leaf in the wind. She had simply walked through it all, looking at everything as though she wanted to etch it into her memory so that she could never forget that devastation.

And though he respected the strength of her nerve, Shirou wondered what she had seen to prepare her for something like that.

"Are you happy, Reconquista?" Wales asked the sky. "Have you ruined enough lives, now? My people are dead. My soldiers, my loyal comrades, are all gone. Are you satisfied that you've crushed me? Or do you desire still more of my royal blood, first?"

He let out a shaky sigh. "Such pointless carnage…"

"Um," Louise started, "Your Highness —"

"Your Majesty," Wales corrected her faintly. "It's 'Your Majesty,' now."

"Long live the king," Guiche said quietly.

"Your Majesty," Louise corrected herself, "does this mean…you'll be coming back with us to Tristain?"

For a long moment, Wales was silent, simply gazing back at the castle they had vacated as the _Marie Galante_ made its way into the night sky as swiftly as possible.

"I have no other choice, now," Wales lamented. "My father is dead. My loyal comrades are gone. There is no heroic end that awaits me in battle, no kingdom for me to return to, only the slow death of exile."

He took in a deep breath through his nose, then turned to Shirou and said, "Do it."

Shirou nodded and lifted his hands. The switch turned on — in the back of his head, the hammer of a gun cocked back and fired. The Magic Circuits activated.

"Trace, on."

The sleek black bow, once belonging to the hero Emiya, formed in his hands like a shard of midnight, bowstring pulled back and tense.

"My core is twisted in madness."

Caladbolg II, the modified sword of Fergus Mac Róich, formed along the bow, notched like an arrow, then streamlined into a thin, narrow shape as Shirou modified it with Reinforcement magic.

But this was not enough. Simply turning the sword into an arrow was not enough. Shirou took it one step further and flooded the sword with Prana, making it fragile and dangerous — a Broken Phantasm.

The bowstring was released. Like a rocket, like a shooting star, the sword-arrow streaked across the sky as a beam of golden light and slammed into the castle in the distance, carving through the battlements as it exploded into a brilliant glowing ball like a second sun. For a moment, that flash illuminated the sky by itself, bright and shining gloriously, and then, ignited by the initial attack, the sulfur that had been left behind inside the castle caught flame and detonated.

The fireball created dwarfed Caladbolg II's by at least thrice as much and consumed the entire castle, lighting up the night sky as though it were midday. The shockwave from the explosion rippled outwards, and moments later, swept over the _Marie Galante_, whipping Shirou's hair back away from his face.

It was a funeral pyre, created not only for the people who had fallen within the castle walls, but also to mark the end of the nation that had died this night. Wales, as the last true king of Albion, was now a government in exile.

This was the plan they had made, thrown together on their way out of Newcastle. There was no time to bury the dead — in the first place, the only ones who had the stomach necessary to handle the gore inside the castle were Shirou, Wales, and a handful of the survivors; Guiche, Louise, and the others were unprepared for that sort of thing — because Reconquista's army was still headed their way. There simply wasn't enough time to collect all of the corpses and all of the pieces of what had once been _people_ and find a plot of land to bury them under.

So, if it wasn't possible to bury them, then the only remaining way to give them a proper funeral was to build a pyre.

Wales, who knew Newcastle best, had set up the sulfur the _Marie Galante_ had been carrying in all of the right places so that it would ignite when Shirou hit it with Caladbolg II. The result: the entirety of Newcastle, and the two-hundred-some bodies contained within it, was wiped off the map and reduced to ash.

"What will you think of me, dear Henrietta?" Wales asked into the quiet. "When you see this face again, beaten into submission, crying bloody tears for the land and the people lost tonight, will you still think it as handsome as you did that day so long ago?"

Shirou said nothing and remained respectfully silent.

"She'll cry with you," Louise burst out.

Wales turned to her and looked at her with something akin to bewilderment. Louise flushed, but soldiered on.

"If you cry for the people killed tonight, then the Princess will cry with you! If the burden is too heavy, if you can't shoulder it on your own, then she'll help you carry it!" Louise said passionately. "That's…That's what being in love is about! Walking together, side by side, carrying each other's burdens together, putting your faith in each other — that's what it means to be in love!"

She took a short breath. "If the Princess loves you and you love her — no, the Princess _does _love you, just as much as you love her, so don't try to do everything on your own! Trust her, put your faith in her, and let her help you carry those burdens! As long as you have each other, then even if you can't always be together, you'll always have someone to rely on in the hard times!"

She flushed again and very obviously tried not to look in Shirou's direction. "Someone very wise taught me that."

It was a very nice sentiment, Shirou thought, and it sounded rather familiar, but he didn't recall ever telling her anything like that.

Wales smiled and looked at her gratefully. "Someone very wise, indeed," he said. "Thank you, Louise de La Vallière. I can see now why Henrietta chose you for this mission."

"Meaningful," Tabitha agreed.

"Oh," Kirche moaned, "how poetic, how beautiful! Darling!" She turned to Shirou and flung her arms open invitingly. "Give them to me, Darling! All of your burdens and troubles — put your faith in me and I'll help you carry them —"

"Denied," Shirou said flatly.

But the damage was already done — the air of sincerity and meaningfulness had evaporated like so much water in the desert.

Louise grumbled. "Can't you go a day without ruining the atmosphere, Zerbst?"

"I can't help it," Kirche said with a shrug. "Darling is just so…_manly_ and _powerful_. Something about it awakens the woman inside of me, the _passion _— I am called 'the Ardent,' you know. It's not just a pretty title."

"Wish you'd learn to keep your 'passion' under your skirt," Louise muttered.

"Don't be jealous," Kirche said, thrusting her chest out, "just because I've got higher quality assets than you, Vallière. We Germanians are just built like that — higher quality all around."

A strange growling sound rumbled across the deck, and it took Shirou a moment to realize that it was coming from Louise, whose back had arched like a cat's.

"_Zerbst_," she ground out, face flushed a brilliant red. Shirou half expected steam to start pouring out of her ears.

Shirou cleared his throat to cut off the impending argument. "Anyway. Guiche."

Guiche jumped, startled. "A-ah," he stuttered, "yes, Sir Shirou?"

"You have my thanks," Shirou told him. "For protecting Louise against Wardes' lightning spell."

"O-oh," Guiche smiled and looked down sheepishly. "W-well, I mean…" he shrugged. "What else was I going to do? Louise was unprotected and there wasn't time to do anything else, so…"

"Indeed," Shirou agreed. "And that is why I thank you, Guiche, because you were willing to sacrifice yourself to save someone else."

"A-ah. W-well…"

"Really?" Kirche asked. "Guiche did that?" She grinned. "Well, I guess you're a bit manlier than I thought you were, Guiche!"

"H-hey!" Guiche protested indignantly.

"Mean," Tabitha added.

"Just teasing, just teasing!" Kirche laughed.

"Yeah? Well, what did you do, Zerbst?" Louise butted in. "While Guiche and I were evacuating the civilians, I bet you went and hid in the corner!"

Kirche snorted. "I'll have you know that Tabitha and I came to get the ship ready while you were doing all of that heroic stuff, Vallière! It might not be the most glorious task, but someone had to do it!"

"Necessary," Tabitha agreed, turning to the next page in her book.

"So you say! I, for one, don't believe a word of it…"

Shirou smiled as he watched them devolve into pointless bickering, arguing about who did what better than the other. He wondered, was I ever like that?

"Oh yeah!" Rin said, laughing. "Back when we were their age, we got into fights like that all the time!"

"Fights that _you_ usually started," Shirou reminded her, "_Tsundere_."

Rin huffed. "I refuse to acknowledge that term."

"Your refusal doesn't change the fact that it exists," Shirou told her. "_Tsundere_."

"It doesn't exist unless I say it exists, no matter what you say!" she argued. "So you can't use it in an argument, Shirou!"

"Getting into a philosophy debate, now? How exactly does Existentialism mesh with magecraft?"

"Fairly well, actually. I'm just surprised that you actually know what Existentialism is!"

"Hey, I might not be as bright as you, but I'm not stupid!"

"That's up for debate. I mean, if you define intelligence based upon survival instincts, then you're about as smart as an amoeba."

"This argument again? I thought you gave up on that years ago!"

"I lied. No matter how unfair it is, I'll keep using it, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Then I'll just keep using that term, _Tsundere_."

"Wha — hey! I said I don't acknowledge that term!"

"And I said that it exists, even if you don't acknowledge it."

"Shirou! You — !"

She suddenly broke off, laughing.

"What?"

"W-we just got into an argument!"

"So?"

"Shirou, what were we talking about before this started?"

"…Oh."

She burst out laughing again, and even Shirou couldn't help but smile along with her.

"I'm going to miss this," she sighed.

"Miss it?" he asked. "What? Have you lost faith in me already? I'll find a way home eventually, you know."

For a long moment, she said nothing. He thought maybe he'd said something wrong and wondered what he'd done to offend her, exactly, because he never really understood what he did that caused her so much frustration on so many other occasions. It wouldn't be the first time she'd been bothered by something he'd said.

"Shirou," Rin began sadly, "when are you going to —"

"Are you alright, Sir Shirou?"

Shirou snapped back into reality, where Wales was looking at him with a bit of worry. He blinked once, twice.

"It's nothing," he promised. "Just…remembering when I was their age."

Wales smiled and looked back at the others, who were still arguing amongst themselves. Guiche was holding back Louise from tackling Kirche, who was smirking like she'd gotten the upper hand. Tabitha was still reading, undisturbed.

"Yes," Wales said, "they certainly are rather energetic, aren't they?"

"That's one word for it," Shirou said. He looked at Wales. "What about you? Are you alright?"

The smile fell and Wales sighed. "No," he admitted. "No, I'm not alright. After what happened tonight, it will be quite a long time before I'm anything close to alright."

He gave Shirou a tired smile. "But I will be eventually, I think. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week. Maybe not for a few months and maybe not for even a year or two. But eventually."

Shirou hummed.

"It doesn't do to dwell on the past," Shirou said wisely. "What you could have done, what you might have done, how things might have changed if only you'd done this or if only you'd done that. If only, if only, if only — the past is the past. Even if you had the power, you shouldn't try to change it. Those people suffered and those people died. If you change that, if you stop that tragedy from happening, then those who suffered and died will have done so for no reason."

He gave Wales a solemn look. "That catastrophe happened, and it is the duty and responsibility of Wales, survivor of that event, last true king of Albion, to carry the weight of that tragedy on his shoulders."

Wales offered Shirou a small smile. "Indeed. You are wise beyond your years, Sir Shirou."

Shirou snorted. "I'm sixty-five."

Wales blinked. "Truly?" he asked. "But you don't look much older than me."

"It's a blessing — or a curse, depending upon your point of view," Shirou said. "In order to fulfill my dream, I made a contract, and until I've fulfilled that contract, this body of mine won't age. I can still be killed, of course, but since I can't age, it means my death must inevitably be on the battlefield."

Wales was silent for a long moment.

"I see," he said at last. "Yes, I understand why that would be a curse. To have to stand by and watch as everyone you cared for withered away — I don't think I could do that. You are much stronger than me, Sir Shirou."

"No." Shirou shook his head. "Just different."

Wales just smiled. "If you say so, Sir Shirou. If you say so."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was three hours later, after everyone but the midnight crew had gone to bed, when Louise approached Shirou, who was looking out at the vast sky from the rail of one of the ship's sides. She came up next to him, placing her hands on the rail and looking at the sky with him, and for a long moment, she was silent.

Then, in a quiet voice, she asked, "Does it always hurt this much?"

Shirou took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. "Betrayal, you mean?"

"Yes."

For a moment, he didn't say anything. He wasn't sure exactly what to say. Should he talk about his own betrayals? Should he talk about how many people had betrayed him? Should he talk about being betrayed by ideals, as the hero Emiya had been?

Should he talk about how the pain never really left you, only became a bitter poison that soured even the best memories you had of the traitor?

"I think half of it is the surprise," Shirou told her at last. "When you're expecting it, it still hurts, but you can tell yourself that you knew it was going to happen anyway. When it just comes out of the blue, when there's no warning or clues beforehand, there's nothing to soften the blow, so it hurts a whole lot more."

He let the pause hang for a moment.

"Betrayal always hurts," he continued. "Betrayal by friends, betrayal by ideals, betrayal by expectations — the only way to keep it from hurting is to simply have no friends, have no ideals, and have no expectations. If you don't have anything to betray you, then you can't be hurt by betrayal."

"But that's…" she began, sounding frustrated.

"That's no way to live," he agreed. "That's just how it is, Louise. Life is about risks, and trust is one of the biggest risks out there."

"But…" she started, as though to argue, then she heaved a great, defeated sigh. "Does it ever stop hurting, at least?"

"Eventually," he said. "It'll stop hurting, and you'll stop feeling angry, and at some point, the mere mention of their name won't bother you nearly so much. But before that happens, every happy memory you have of that person will be tainted. You'll wonder, when did he stop being my friend? When did he start planning to stab me in the back?"

He paused again, and he remembered Matou Shinji, who had once been his friend, and who had once tried to sacrifice all of their classmates for a selfish goal.

"Eventually," he went on, "you'll stop being upset about it, and you'll look back on all those happy memories and decide, this is how I'm going to remember him. The person who betrayed me was someone else. This was the person who was my friend."

Louise sighed again. She'd started doing that a lot ever since he'd come here, Shirou thought.

"Well," she said grouchily, "I'm a _long_ way from that. I don't think I can ever forgive that…that…_bastard_!"

She slammed her fist against the rail. Shirou arched an eyebrow. "Wardes?"

Louise nodded.

"I just don't understand it!" she exclaimed. "He was Captain of the Griffin Knights! He was a Viscount in Her Majesty's court! He was handsome and…and kind and…and…and well-respected! He had everything a man could want out of life! And Princess Henrietta, who's so gentle and compassionate and generous, who — who even remembers and cares for a friend she hasn't known since childhood, trusted him! How could he betray her like that?! How could he…!"

She sobbed and her shoulders shook, and two tiny tears dropped down onto her hands.

"How could he betray _me_?" she demanded, halfway between anger and despair.

Shirou sighed. "Louise…"

"He was my _fiancé_," she said shakily. "I…I thought he _loved_ me. I…I almost gave up my _dreams_ for him. We…we were supposed to get married, maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but _eventually._ And…and we'd have kids and grow old together and I…I…"

She sniffed. "…I don't know…"

"Louise…"

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she brushed him off and spun around to face him, then threw herself full force into his chest. He winced, just a little, at the suddenness of the sharp twinge that shot through his side — apparently, she'd forgotten that he was wounded.

"M-maybe it was me," she said into his shirt. "M-maybe…he f-found someone else…an-and he h-hated me, because w-we were still engaged! O-or maybe…maybe it's because I d-decided not to marry him yet! M-maybe, maybe that's all h-he wanted, and I…! I…!"

'_Maybe I drove him away,'_ hung, unsaid, in the air.

Shirou gently wrapped his arms around Louise's shoulders and let her cry into his chest. She shook beneath his hands, sobbing quietly and trying, it seemed to him, very hard not to make much noise at all.

Of course. Her pride wouldn't let anyone else know she was crying.

He felt very much like a father or an older brother, then. Ilya had been much different — she was such a spoiled, carefree princess that it couldn't compare to the feeling of responsibility he had right then and there with Louise. No, Ilya hadn't required gentle love and care or a role model, only affection and someone to clean up after her when she made a mess.

But Louise…Louise needed all of that.

So he held her as she cried, pretending not to notice the wetness on his front or how long he stood there with her in his arms, shaking. Of course — hadn't he known from the first day that what Louise needed most from him was patience?

And as he held her, Shirou thought to himself that there were now three people he could claim to have well and truly hated. Oh, he'd certainly been very angry at other people, at Dead Apostle Ancestors and reckless magi who had endangered and destroyed countless lives, but he hadn't hated them, he hadn't wished with every fiber of his being to utterly destroy them until nothing remained. He hadn't even hated Angra Mainyu — how could you hate something that was the way it was simply because that was its default state? Actually, in some ways, Angra Mainyu was more deserving of his pity than his contempt.

But there'd been only two people he'd truly hated: Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, and Kotomine Kirei. For Gilgamesh, it was simply because they were fundamentally opposed — a completely selfless person could never agree with someone so selfish — but for Kotomine Kirei, it had been a natural reaction; of course. If he hadn't hated Kirei, Shirou thought that perhaps he might have found himself liking him.

Now, there was a third person Shirou could add to his list of people he hated: Jean-Jacques de Wardes, who had so very badly betrayed Louise.

Such a callous, cold-hearted man with delusions of grandeur. Really, he shouldn't have affected Shirou so much — Wardes' type of person was so dreadfully common that Shirou imagined he must have killed at least a dozen during the course of his lifetime — but for some reason, what should have been a casual dislike — a dislike born simply on principle rather than from any emotional response — was instead a burning hate.

How ironic, Shirou thought, that all three men he had well and truly come to hate were also all dead.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Riding on a dragon, Shirou decided, was much, _much_ more comfortable than a horse.

They had all agreed that the quickest and simplest way to reach the Princess and report the events of the past few days was to ride on the back of Tabitha's dragon (who was apparently named "Sylphid") and fly over to the Royal Palace. That way, they didn't have to worry about tired horses or taking a certain pathway — they could just take the straightest route to the capital and fly right to the palace, bypassing the busy streets of the town around it.

Shirou had to admit, though; he hadn't actually thought that Sylphid could carry all of them at once — a group of six? They would have had a hard time fitting them all into a nicely-sized car, and the back of a flying lizard hardly seemed as accommodating as a car. And yet, somehow, he, Louise, Tabitha, Kirche, Guiche, and Wales had all managed to situate themselves atop Sylphid's scaly, blue, surprisingly broad back without crowding each other.

Compared to the two-and-a-half days it had taken to reach La Rochelle from the Academy on their original trip, it took only a few hours atop Sylphid before Tristain's capital, Tristainia, came into view in the distance.

"We can't waste any time," Wales was saying over the wind. "We have to meet with Henrietta as soon as possible. It won't take long for Reconquista to figure out what happened, and if those fighters —"

"Heroic Spirits," Shirou interrupted. Wales glanced at him. "Aside from Wardes, the mage in the mask who was slinging spells around, those other two were Heroic Spirits, without a doubt."

"Heroic Spirits," Wales allowed. He continued, "If those Heroic Spirits report to Reconquista, then Cromwell will know for sure that I survived the battle at Newcastle and that I've fled to Tristain. It will provide him the perfect excuse to mount an army and attack. The sooner we tell Henrietta, the quicker she can muster her troops and prepare a defense, which means —"

"Minimization of civilian casualties," Louise concluded with surprising clarity. "The sooner a defense can be mounted, the less likely it will be that noncombatants might be caught in the crossfire."

"Vallière!" Kirche exclaimed as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Louise!" Guiche said, astonished.

Shirou didn't blame them. He was rather surprised himself. After all, he'd thought his cute little Master was rather ignorant of things like that — as a member of the nobility, knowing how to fight and wage war didn't seem like something she would need to know, so he hadn't thought she would.

But here she was, talking about minimizing casualties among noncombatants as though she'd gone to some sort of military academy.

When had Louise learned about tactics and strategy like that?

"That's…right," Wales finished a little awkwardly. "Um…Anyway, the sooner we tell Henrietta, the more prepared we can be for the inevitable attack. Not only will it reduce the number of civilian and innocent casualties — as you said, Miss Vallière — but it will also give us a stronger position to fight from."

"Which means higher chances of winning," Shirou added, but he was staring at Louise, whose brow was furrowed in thought.

"Just so," Wales agreed.

The palace gate came into sight, and beyond it, there was the royal palace, tall, white, and majestic, where Princess Henrietta would be waiting for news of their mission. At the same moment, however, a group of men surged up from the ground mounted on lion-like creatures with wings and tails like scorpions.

They shot up into the sky, and with practiced ease and expertise, they swerved into a formation around Sylphid — like fighter pilots in his world, Shirou thought, coming up alongside a plane and forcing it to land.

"Halt!" one of them shouted at Shirou's group. "This is a restricted flight zone! Turn away and land at the designated area for inspection!"

"Keep going!" Wales ordered.

Sylphid let out an obedient keening sound and swooped down low, through the circling leonine mounts, into a steep dive that sent a strange thrill through Shirou's stomach. Beside him, he heard both Guiche and Louise screaming like children on a rollercoaster. Below, the palace courtyard became bigger and bigger, growing so much larger with each second that, for a moment, he thought that they might crash.

But Sylphid straightened out at the last moment, flaring its (his? Her? Shirou wasn't sure) wings wide like a parachute to slow them to a gentle glide before landing with surprising softness.

They all ambled off the moment Sylphid folded its wings against its sides, and Shirou helped a shaking Louise down from its scaly blue back.

"Never again," she promised him. "I'm never riding on a dragon again!"

Behind her, Sylphid let out a sound that Shirou very much suspected was the dragon version of a chuckle.

"As you say, Master," he agreed.

"What's the matter, Louise?" Kirche hopped easily off of Sylphid's back, sure-legged and smirking. "Never ridden on the back of a dragon before?"

Louise scowled and turned away, out of Shirou's arms, to glower at Kirche.

"Kirche," Guiche said, "I don't think you should —"

"Now, now," Wales interrupted, climbing down with practiced ease. "This isn't the time for squabbling. We must —"

Without warning, the mounted guards who had tried to order them away landed heavily all at once. The ground shook beneath the paws of the monstrous leonine beasts, who all hit the ground at speed one after another without slowing to a stop. Six men threw themselves off of their mounts, wand-swords drawn and pointed at Shirou's group, and from the shouts in the distance, another dozen or so reinforcements were on the way.

"DROP YOUR WANDS!" one of the men, a tall and burly figure with a rough mustache, bellowed.

Louise, Guiche, and Kirche all tensed, wands drawn, and looked prepared for battle, and Shirou shifted just the slightest so that he could protect Louise, if necessary. But Wales, who seemed unperturbed, strode in front of them with a calm "I'll handle this."

He walked forward as though to greet the guards, but the man who had bellowed simply raised his wand-sword threateningly.

"No further, now!" the guard declared strongly. "Drop your wands, or we will detain you by force!"

"I am Wales Tudor," Wales said importantly, holding up his finger with a silver ring set with what looked like a yellow topaz gemstone, "Crown Prince —" he grimaced and corrected himself — "that is, _King_ of Albion. I'm here to see Princess Henrietta. I bring news of the rebellion."

The guards shifted a little and hesitated. Shirou could see the indecision that was suddenly set along their shoulders. But the leader didn't look convinced.

"Prince Wales, are you?" the mustached guard asked skeptically. "I've heard that one before! Drop your wand, _Your Highness_, or _I'll _drop _you_!"

Wales' mouth fell open, and he looked flustered at being so easily and swiftly rejected.

Louise stepped forward, and Shirou very reluctantly stayed behind as she approached the guard, who turned his wand-sword to her instead.

Unperturbed, she pressed one hand to her chest and declared, "I am Louise Francoise de La Vallière, third daughter of the Duke de La Vallière! I am here for an audience with Her Highness, the Princess, in regards to a sensitive issue she requested I resolve!"

The mustached guard was silent for a moment, looking Louise up and down appraisingly, and Shirou's hand itched to reach for Derf when the quiet stretched uncomfortably long.

"You have your mother's eyes, Miss de La Vallière," the guard said at last, and as he relaxed a little, so too did the rest of the guards. "Be that as it may, however, I'm afraid I still can't let you pass without reason. What is it you need to speak to Her Highness about?"

Louise gave a frustrated scowl. "I can't tell you. It's a secret."

"Then I can't let you pass. It's as simple as that."

Louise's face scrunched up. "It's a secret," she said, sounding like she was talking to someone who was being purposefully difficult. "I'm _sworn_ to secrecy. It kind of defeats the point of being a secret if I tell it to you!"

The guardsman snorted and glanced over at Shirou, then Kirche, Guiche, and Tabitha.

"Somehow," he said sardonically, "I think my clearance is a bit higher than a couple of schoolchildren."

Louise growled and stomped her foot. "It's not about 'clearance' or 'rank' or anything like that! I'm under orders to keep it a secret! The Princess trusts me with this! I refuse to betray her like that!"

The guardsman scowled now, too, mustache drooping downward as his brow furrowed.

"I think I see what's going on here," he said at last. "You may be Karin de La Vallière's daughter, but you are neither an adult nor does your word carry much import. To come here claiming you have a message for the Princess, that you were on some sort of…of _secret mission_ or some such tripe — preposterous! The Manticore Knights, the Griffin Knights, the Musketeer Knights — if the Princess needed some deed carried out, she had only too many who would have gladly done so! Trained men, who have been instilled with discipline and learned how to fight, not a teenage schoolgirl who hasn't even finished her lessons! If you're not going to tell us why you're here, then I don't have any other choice, Karin's daughter or not!"

He lifted his wand-sword. "Guards!" he barked. "Arrest them! We'll see if they aren't feeling more talkative about their _real_ intentions once our interrogators have had a word with them!"

Around them, the other guards lifted their wand-swords, too, prepared to cast, while Kirche, Wales, Guiche, and Tabitha all tensed. It would be a long fight that might result in casualties, where people might be unduly injured over pride and zealous fulfillment of duty.

Except Shirou, who was already moving to place himself in front of Louise, could stop it.

"Trace —"

"STOP!"

A voice cried out to stop them, and it belonged to a woman clad in white rushing down from the palace gates, her long, voluminous skirt held up so that she could run. Shirou recognized her immediately — it was the Princess.

The guardsmen all hesitated, turning to their leader, who himself looked rather flabbergasted.

Next to Shirou, Wales' face broke out into a radiant smile. "Henrietta!"

"Wales!" the Princess cried.

Wales started forward, too, pushing past both Shirou and Louise and the mustached guard as though he had forgotten they were even there, and ran towards Henrietta. The sheer joy on his face, the pure affection and happiness that radiated out from him — that, Shirou thought, made the entire trip worth it.

"Henrietta!"

"Wales!"

Henrietta flung herself into Wales' chest, and Wales grabbed her in a tight hug, laughing as he spun her around like they were normal teenagers rather than a Prince and Princess.

Yes. He hadn't been able to save all of those people at Newcastle and so many had senselessly lost their lives, but this moment made up for it. Being able to see those smiles, being able to see that joy, being able to know that he had saved someone, that he had brought salvation and happiness like this — of course it was good, of course it was amazing, even if he hadn't been able to save all those others.

You couldn't save everyone. Shirou had known that for a long time, and yet he tried to do it anyway. Even though he failed, even though it was impossible, he still strived to fulfill that dream.

But there was something else Shirou had learned, too, much later on.

You couldn't save everyone, and you should never forget those you couldn't save…but you should carry that weight, that responsibility, without wallowing in it. Even if you can't save everyone, take comfort in the fact that you've saved at least one person. Even if you couldn't save everyone, even if there were so many other people who died, that one person was proof that you had made a difference, even if it was small.

And so, despite that so many people had died so senselessly, Shirou was satisfied that he had at least saved this one person.

"Shirou, you're smiling."

Shirou blinked and looked down at Louise, who was staring up at him with an odd look on her face.

"Oh?" he said, still smiling. "So I am."

As if he had given her some great and detailed explanation, she nodded, turned away, and said nothing else.

Henrietta broke away from Wales and, still smiling a broad, almost goofy smile, looked towards the lead guardsman, who still seemed as though he had no idea what was happening.

"These people are my guests and are welcome at this palace," she declared formally. "Forgive me, Sir Knight, for not informing you sooner, but I was not expecting them to arrive back this quickly from the task I had entrusted them with."

The guardsman, although he clearly had no idea what was going on and was very far out of his comfort zone, bowed deeply to the Princess.

"Of course, Your Highness," he said, mustache twitching. "I am but a humble servant. No apologies are necessary."

He sheathed his wand-sword, and after a gesture with one of his hands, all of his men did, too.

"Nonetheless, I apologize," Henrietta said. "As you were only doing your duty, if I had instead confided in you that I expected them, this whole situation might have been more swiftly and easily resolved. That I did not inform you that they were to report to me and so to be welcomed into the palace is only a fault of mine. Please forgive me."

"It was no trouble, Your Highness," the guardsman insisted.

"Speaking of," Henrietta segued and turned to Louise, "Louise Francoise, you have my thanks for doing me this favor. You are my truest and dearest friend."

Louise flushed. "I-it was nothing, Your Highness," she said politely. "I-I was merely doing…what any proper Tristainian should do for her Princess!"

Henrietta smiled at her and looked about to say something else, but Wales gave her a subtle nudge, and as she glanced over at him, she very visibly reigned herself in before turning back to Louise.

"With that said," she began, "we have much to discuss, now, and I would have you inform me of the details of your mission somewhere where we won't be interrupted or overheard. Sir Guiche?"

Guiche straightened. "Yes, Your Highness?"

She gestured to Tabitha and Kirche. "Please lead Miss…?"

"Tabitha," Tabitha said simply.

"Kirche von Zerbst," Kirche declared proudly.

"Please escort Miss Tabitha and Miss Kirche to the guest rooms and take a well-deserved rest." She turned to the lead guardsman. "Sir Knight, if you would be so kind as to have one of your men lead the way?"

"Of course, Your Highness," the guardsman said. He spun around and pointed immediately to one of his men. "Moreau! You just volunteered. Show these three to the best guest rooms we have available!"

The other guard, Moreau, snapped to attention and shouted, "Yes, sir!"

He came up, dressed as the other knights and sporting a mop of unruly brown hair, and turned to Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche.

"Please follow me," he said politely, and then led them away. As she left, Kirche spun around, blew Shirou a kiss, and said, "Bye, Darling!"

A moment later, they were all gone, and the doors snapped shut behind them.

"One of these days," Louise said flatly, "I'm going to kill her."

Shirou stopped another smile. "Of course, Master."

"Now," Henrietta said, "Sir Shirou, Louise Francoise, if you would follow me…?"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Henrietta led the three of them — Louise, Shirou, and Wales — to a large, lush bedroom that could only have been hers, passing a vigilantly patrolling Agnés along the way, and, after making sure the doors were closed and locked, turned with her wand and cast the same silencing spell she had used in Louise's room on that night that had started it all.

"There," she said with a sigh as the walls shimmered with her spell. She smiled at them and then sat down at a small tea table, gesturing to another three chairs arrayed around it. Wales and Louise sat down immediately, and Shirou hesitated for a moment, considering the safety and the defensibility of the position, before taking the remaining seat.

"I assume," Henrietta began without preamble, "that something happened to Viscount Wardes, since he didn't return with you?"

For a moment, Louise remained silent and glanced at Shirou, who decided to let her tell the story and said nothing. She turned back to the Princess and squared her shoulders.

"Wardes was a traitor, Your Highness," Louise declared solemnly.

"Henrietta," Henrietta corrected her. "When we're alone, I would have you call me Henrietta, Louise Francoise, as you are my friend. But…the Viscount? A traitor? Are you sure?"

"Well…" Louise grimaced and looked over at Shirou, and Shirou decided that he could handle this part, at least.

"The Viscount was among the assailants who attacked Newcastle and killed the previous king," Shirou explained. "I can't claim to understand how it works, but he had some sort of illusion or doppelganger stand in for him while he attacked Newcastle in disguise."

Henrietta worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "Then if the Viscount is a traitor, Reconquista will know of the letter regardless."

"No," Wales said suddenly. "The Viscount Wardes was killed before my eyes. He won't trouble us anymore."

"Which means nothing," Shirou told him. "We still don't know whether or not Perseus, Drake, or that third Heroic Spirit were allied with Reconquista, but up until he was betrayed, Wardes was allied with them. There's no way to know for sure right now, but the possibility remains they were all working for or with Reconquista."

"But then, why would Reconquista be after the Staff of Destruction?" Louise asked. "It was that woman, Francis Drake, who helped Fouquet escape, after all."

"It's a weapon," Shirou said as though it should be obvious. "What does anyone want with a weapon?"

Louise shook her head. "The Church would want any artifact belonging to the Founder, regardless of whether or not it was a weapon. Besides, even with a spell to decrease its weight, it's still too heavy for a normal person, even a mage, to wield, right?"

"I suppose," Shirou allowed. Although, when he thought about it, hadn't Wardes used a spell to increase his strength and speed during their duel? Wasn't is possible to combine a lightening charm with that reinforcement spell (that was the only magic that made sense to him for that increase in speed and power) in order to wield it without the burden?

Of course, that _did_ sound like a whole lot of trouble to go through just to wield an artifact that wasn't especially impressive, ignoring that it was a Noble Phantasm.

"And those Heroic Spirits already have their own Noble Phantasms, right?" Louise reasoned. "What would they need the Staff for, then?"

"Fair point."

"So —"

"Excuse me, Sir Shirou, Louise Francoise," Henrietta interrupted, "but, Perseus? Francis Drake? Noble Phantasms? _Heroic Spirits_?"

Wales blinked and turned to Shirou and Louise. "I thought you'd already told her about all of this," he said incredulously.

Shirou and Louise shared a look and grimaced together.

"Your High — H-Henrietta," Louise corrected herself. "Some of this will be sound very strange and unbelievable, but I've seen it for my own eyes, and the parts of it that I haven't, I trust my Servant to have told me truthfully. Please keep an open mind."

"O-okay," Henrietta answered uncertainly.

So, they told her.

Louise led the story, talking about what Heroic Spirits were and how they had met the three who had all attacked them at various points on their trip. She talked about Fouquet and Drake, and how the latter had appeared in the company of Perseus and Not-Lancelot (which was what Shirou had taken to calling the mysterious figure in blue), and she talked about how they'd met Wales on their way to Albion.

Shirou and Wales added to it when necessary, such as the situation in Albion, the _Royal Sovereign_, and Reconquista's plans to attack Newcastle (Wales), or the identity of the Heroic Spirits that were known, how the Kaleidoscope, the Second True Magic, worked, and the mechanics behind Noble Phantasms (Shirou), but for the most part, Louise did the talking.

When they finished, Henrietta was silent for a long moment. The expression on her face was unreadable, and it was impossible to tell whether or not she believed them.

At last, she said, "This is a lot to take in."

"If it helps, I can vouch for 'em," Derf spoke up.

Henrietta looked puzzled. "The talking sword?"

"Derflinger, Yer Highness," Derf corrected her. "An' I had the pleasure of knowin' Brimir, seein' as I'm about six thousand years old. This Heroic Spirit stuff is stuff he learned way back when, but never really taught ta any of his disciples."

And the question that bothered Shirou about that: why not?

If he knew about them, why hadn't Brimir taught his disciples about Heroic Spirits and True Magic and all of those other things?

"…As you say," Henrietta allowed. She turned back to Shirou, who had reached down to where Derf rested against his chair and shoved him back into his sheath. "Nonetheless, because I trust Louise Francoise and because of Louise Francoise's trust in you, Sir Shirou, I am willing to put aside my doubts and believe you without question."

"Oh!" Louise shot up in her seat and seemed suddenly to remember something. She rummaged about in her pockets and after a moment of searching, produced both the letter and the ring she had been entrusted with. "Forgive me, Princess, I nearly forgot to return this to you."

Henrietta smiled.

"Thank you, Louise Francoise." She took back the letter, crumpled from Louise's pocket, but pressed the ring, the Water Ruby, back into Louise's palm and gently closed Louise's fingers around it. "And as a reward for your loyalty and your success, I would like you to hold onto this ring for now, as a token of my gratitude and esteem."

"B-but this is…!" Louise protested, flushing brilliantly. "I-I mean, I-I couldn't!"

"For such dedication, not only to me as your friend, but also to the well-being of your country, this is the least of the rewards I could give you," Henrietta said, smiling. "Please, I insist, Louise Francoise. Put it on."

"B-but!" Louise tried to protest again.

"I, as well," Wales said suddenly. He reached up to one hand and pulled from his finger the ring he had shown the guards earlier — a stunning silver ring with a large, glittering gemstone that looked like yellow topaz.

"I-I couldn't!"

"Please accept this," Wales asked. He set the ring on the table in front of Louise. "Not simply as a token of my esteem, but I would ask you to hold onto it and take care of it until such time as I have reclaimed my rightful throne. I fear I won't be worthy to wear it again until then."

"Oh, Wales," Henrietta sighed sympathetically.

"I-I…I…" Louise tried to say something, still determined and adamant that she couldn't possibly accept such a gift, but Shirou saw when she gave in by the way her shoulders dropped a little and the fight left her eyes. "Th-thank you, Your Highness."

She slipped the Water Ruby on one finger, but the Wind Ruby proved much too large for her, until Henrietta reached over with her wand, muttered an incantation, and tapped the ring. Like that, it shrunk to fit Louise's finger easily.

Shirou couldn't help but chuckle.

Louise sent him a dirty look. "What?"

Shirou pointed to the Wind and Water Rubies, one of which sat on her index finger and the other of which sat on her ring finger, both on her right hand.

"On your fingers, now," he explained, "you're wearing the rings traditionally worn by the ruling monarchs of Tristain and Albion — something no one else in history has ever done, right?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Well," Shirou began slyly, "just how do you think your classmates are going to react when they realize that you have so much pull with both the Princess of Tristain and the rightful King of Albion that you've actually been allowed to wear the royal rings of both countries?"

Surprise flitted across her face first, but as she pieced together all of the implications, her expression slowly changed into a smile that Shirou found rather strikingly familiar.

"Oh," Louise said, sounding almost sadistically pleased, "that's right, isn't it?"

And as he sat there, watching her silently plot out how she would instill respect — by force, if necessary — in all of the naysayers who had bullied and mocked her before, Shirou found himself marveling at the strangeness of just how similar she was to Rin.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

_**To be continued**_

**This turned out about 2000 words longer than I expected it to be.**

**I gave two major clues to the mystery man's identity in this chapter. Good luck with figuring it out. If you have guesses, go ahead and guess, but I'll only tell you if you can reason it out properly - just going, "Is it so-and-so? It's so-and-so, isn't it?" won't get you a straight answer.**

**Also, I've done some art for this story and it's posted on my DA page, but you've been warned that there are some major spoilers involved, so if you don't want to have some major plot points spoiled, don't go there.**

**Everyone shines in this chapter. Everyone. Guiche shines by protecting Louise and the civilians. Louise shines by giving that speech about love. Everyone shines.**

**Except Kirche. She and Tabitha didn't get much time, here, mostly because Shirou's attention was on other things, so he didn't get to see them going to the docks to prepare the ship to leave. Not much, not very heroic, but even something like that is worth mentioning.**

**And Wardes is dead, as in doornail. If anyone has anything they want to say to him, they'll have to call collect to the afterlife.**

**Or will they?**

**A lot of the twists and turns this chapter were probably pretty obvious, but then that's only natural. Everyone here should already have known that Wardes was a bad guy, so him showing up as an enemy shouldn't have surprised anyone.**

**I imagine you're all also getting tired of Rin getting cut off just as she's about to reveal to you all exactly why she's in Shirou's head, and some of you are probably thinking it's a really cheap and easy way for me to prolong this conflict — trust me, it's just a matter of timing. I'm waiting for the right moment to pop out at me, and it hasn't, yet, so we're still putting off the climax of the Rin subplot. Tentatively, I have it scheduled to climax with the other subplot, the Mott confrontation, pulled straight from the anime and mish-mashed with **_**Unfamiliar**_**'s handling of the issue and a few of my own ideas. **

**As always, read, review, enjoy.**


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